Get yourself a globe: 3 years later

I wrote the short article below in October 2020. It was about six months into the pandemic, at a time in which the world felt smaller and larger at the same time. We were "all in it together", but the divisions between people were palpably wider.

Reading this article three years and change later, it still resonates. It may, actually, be even more relevant.

We need people to engage with history and the past in order to have more informed and fruitful conversations about the present and future. We need people to have a wider historical perspective in order to appreciate the enormous progress that has been made, and realize that we're not done. We need people to understand the global intricacies and complexities of the world in order to appreciate the intricacies and complexities within themselves.

We need people to be less cynical and more curious.

I believe a globe is a great way in.

-Tal

Original article below:

When I was a child, one of my favorite games to play was Capital Cities. The game was simple: my dad would name countries and I had to name their capital cities from memory. This was in the 1980’s so there were 34 less countries to know about than today. I always had an ear out for my dad's “trick question”: what is the capital of Germany? This was before the Berlin Wall came down, before the West Germany-East Germany reunification that started in 1989, so there were technically two German capital cities (Berlin and Bonn). ?

I loved playing this game with my dad. I would study for it by spending countless hours looking at a globe, searching for the starred city in each country and then writing the names in a notebook as a way to memorize them. It sparked my interest in geography and history, which made way for politics, economics, philosophy, and sociology as I grew older. I don’t think I’m giving Capital Cities too much credit when I say that it led me to working in research. It fueled an immense curiosity to understand people and the world around me, especially what unites us all.

My daughter is now the same age I was when I started playing Capital Cities with my Dad, so it felt like the perfect time to get a new globe for us to explore together. The wonder and questions started almost immediately: Who decided where the lines go? Who came up with the country's name? Why are some countries bigger than others? Who lives in these countries? Are there animals there? Do they have ice cream? Oh good, can we visit then??

A globe is a portal. A conduit for questions and conversations of every kind. A globe encourages us to linger on our shared past a while longer. It motivates us to analyze and better understand the present. It is a great tool for parents who want to start having hard conversations with their children about brutal pasts and historical injustices. The antidote to the chaos we observe around us today is a deeper study of world history, of all kinds. A globe is the perfect companion as people, particularly parents, embark on this journey.

Above all, a globe is a tangible reminder that we’re really all in it together, that more unites than divides us, and that we're closer to one another than we think.