When George Bancroft was hunched over his table at the venerable Boston Athenæum in 1832, he wasn’t merely working on the critical scaffolding of his great work, “History of the United States of America.” That was certainly his task, but, as historian Colin Woodard makes clear in his compelling new book, “Union: The Struggle to Forge the Story of United States Nationhood,” there was a deeper force driving Bancroft: He wasn’t just writing history – he was shaping mythology.Īfter graduating from Harvard at the ripe old age of 16, he studied in Germany and read foreign histories of the United States while staying with his brother-in-law in Washington, and he gradually achieved an epiphany. Supporting that isn’t in anybody’s interests.” “Rogue nuclear states are as unwelcome there as they are here. While North Korea will have significant leverage, there will almost certainly be a limit to how far Russia will go.“North Korea is an enormous nuisance,” the Monitor’s Paris-based international editor and former Moscow bureau chief, Peter Ford, tells me. Yet Russia has long been wary of North Korea’s nuclear ambitions, supporting the last round of international sanctions in 2017. That’s more than a handshake and slap on the back.But is this a new “axis of evil”? By fueling the Ukraine war, does North Korea get the technology and know-how to build a nuclear weapon – or at least accelerate its program?On one hand, a robust relationship could significantly undermine international sanctions, giving North Korea money it would otherwise not have. Russian officials went so far as to suggest recently that North Korea could take part in joint military drills with Russia and China. Russia needs military materiel, and North Korea needs food, oil, and money. North Korea can help.Putting aside the sanctions against North Korea that would prohibit such trade, a deal makes sense for both sides. Russia is burning through its stocks of artillery in Ukraine. Kim almost never leaves his country, but the inducement could be considerable.

That’s the news from The New York Times.The reclusive Mr. It seems that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un might be jumping on his armored train this month to visit President Vladimir Putin in Russia.

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