Namit Arora,"Marco Polo's India," 3 Quarks Daily, 5 January, looks at what we learn from Marco Polo about 13th century India and what we learn about him.

Nicholas Bakalar,"In Reality, Oliver's Diet Wasn't Truly Dickensian," NYT, 29 December, reports a finding in The British Medical Journal that Charles Dickens took dramatic license in his account of Oliver Twist's diet in the 19th century workhouse.

Eugene Volokh finds explanatory power in the fact that, on 18 June 1912, Congress passed a law entitled,"An Act to provide for the support and maintenance of bastards in the District of Columbia."

Sarah Wildman,"Paper Love: Inside the Holocaust Archives," Slate, 5 January, looks at the newly opened archive at Bad Arolsen, Germany.

Adam Kirsch,"Beware of Pity," New Yorker, 12 January, re-assesses Hannah Arendt and her Eichmann in Jerusalem, The Origins of Totalitarianism, and Rahel Varnhagen: The Life of a Jewess.