Science as History • Commencement • An Unexpected Life JULY-AUGUST 2009 • $4.95 A Changing Cuba? Tiptoeing into the new century You’re managing a fi nancial life with lots of moving parts. Let Fidelity be your guide. Whatever your destination, Fidelity has the people, guidance and investments to help you fi nd your way. Contact us today for a complimentary portfolio review. 800.FIDELITY | Fidelity.com Investing involves risk. You should consider your objectives, time horizon, and risk tolerance carefully. Fidelity Brokerage Services LLC, Member NYSE, SIPC. © 2009 FMR LLC. All rights reserved. 516107 JULY-AUGUST 2009 VOLUME 111, NUMBER 6 FEATURES 24 Forum: Hello from Havana Stirrings of change, Cuban style by Jorge I. Domínguez JIM HARRISON page 42 DEPARTMENTS 28 Vita: Theobald Smith page 23 Brief life of a pioneering comparative pathologist: 1859-1934 2 Cambridge 02138 by Steven M. Niemi Communications from our readers © 2009 BY DK PUBLISHING. 8A New England Regional Section 30 Who Killed the Men of England? Campus events, car-free and The new science of human history looks beyond written records carefree excursions, outdoor dining options to genomics, molecular archaeology, demographics, and more BIRDS OF NORTH AMERICA. Jonathan Shaw FROM 9 Right Now by Cracking a Je≠erson- era cipher, modeling cancer by computer, depression’s 36 Lessons from an Unexpected Life lingering signature Struggling against a genetic disease for four decades, a 15 Montage physician and his patient learn about medical innovation, Classically trained jazz the healthcare system, and each other pianist, food addiction, David G. Nathan STU ROSNER by Letterman’s laugh man, the page 36 hajj on the big screen, Islamic Europe, prison portraits, bird books, and more 42 John Harvard’s Journal At the 358th Commencement, an honorand tooted his own horn—but much of 63 The Alumni A Jungian crime novelist, Overseer the sober talk concerned “changed times.” Also, “resizing” and “reshaping” the and alumni election results, Harvard hard-pressed Faculty of Arts and Medalists, and more Sciences, computer-science multitasker, 68 The College Pump the University’s real financial challenges, Rejection, Homestead(ing), and executive vice president’s quick exit, the doctoral Detroit Overseer leaders, R.I.P. printed course 76 Treasure catalogs, looming layo≠s, House renewal, The most romantic tent in town the Dalai Lama plants a tree, an ungodly 69 Crimson Classifieds theft from Widener remembered, the On the cover: Havana, March 2007. Undergraduate’s “ghosts,” Cape Cod League Photograph by Stu Rosner catcher, and a wrap-up of spring sports page 55 Harvard Magazine 3 www.harvardmagazine.com Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 LETTERS Editor: John S. Rosenberg Senior Editor: Jean Martin Managing Editor: Jonathan S. Shaw Deputy Editor: Craig Lambert 02138 Associate Editor: Elizabeth Gudrais Cambridge Production and New Media Manager: Mark Felton Assistant Editor: Nell Porter Brown “Meat Ball” music, selfless Dr. Rock, gays and the military Associate Web Developer: Blaise Freeman Art Director: Jennifer Carling Acting Art Director: Vera Leung Berta Greenwald Ledecky ENGLISH 10’S VIRTUES Undergraduate Fellows I was sorry to read that a survey of Eng- Christian Flow, Brittney Moraski lish literature will no longer be required of Editorial Intern: Harvard English concentrators (“Humani- Krysten A. Keches ties Rebooted,” May-June, page 52). It’s Contributing Editors said that students don’t like surveys. I John T. Bethell, John de Cuevas, Adam would have thought that a student who Goodheart, Jim Harrison, Courtney spends a year reading the likes of Chaucer, Humphries, Christopher S. Johnson, Milton, Wordsworth, Austen, and Woolf Adam Kirsch, Colleen Lannon, with anything less than exhilaration Christopher Reed, Stu Rosner, would owe at least one crucial discovery Deborah Smullyan, Mark Steele to the course: that she’s not, in fact, very Editorial and Business O≠ice interested in literature after all, whatever 7 Ware Street, she might have thought beforehand. Cambridge, Mass. 02138-4037 There’s a big and questionable leap Tel. 617-495-5746; fax: 617-495-0324 from the unobjectionable statement that Website: www.harvardmagazine.com chronology doesn’t o≠er the only way to Reader services: approach literature, to the idea that a least when talking to Harvard students. 617-495-5746 or 800-648-4499 chronological survey doesn’t provide stu- Thomas Peyser ’84 HARVARD MAGAZINE INC. dents with an irreplaceable orientation as Professor of English, Randolph-Macon College President: Henry Rosovsky, JF ’57, they take up literary studies. No doubt Ashland, Va. Ph.D. ’59, LL.D. ’98. Directors: Leslie E. physicians, of a kind, could be produced Greis ’80, Alex S. 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The magazine is supported by reader con- prise more than that initial, sometimes tributions and subscriptions, advertising revenue, and a blacklist was the Harvard Society for Mi- subvention from Harvard University. Its editorial content bewildering immersion in the stu≠ of nority Rights, which sponsored “A Concert is the responsibility of the editors. Periodicals postage paid at Boston, Mass., and additional mailing o≠ices. Postmas- their vocation. of Folk Songs by Pete Seeger” on April 24, ter: Send address changes to Circulation Department, Har- I o≠er the analogy with some appre- 1955, in New Lecture Hall. vard Magazine, 7 Ware Street, Cambridge, Mass. 02138- 4037. Subscription rate $30 a year in U.S. and possessions, hension that by comparing poems to Charles Gross ’57 $55 Canada and Mexico, $75 other foreign. (Allow up to 10 weeks for first delivery.) Subscription orders and customer cadavers I’m revealing a deadly, “acade- Professor of psychology, Princeton, and service inquiries should be sent to the Circulation Depart- mic” attitude towards literature, and Emile Chi ’57, G ’60, Jim Perlstein ’57, and ment, Harvard Magazine, 7 Ware Street, Cambridge, Mass. Michael Tanzer ’57, Ph.D. ’62 02138-4037, or call 617-495-5746 or 800-648-4499, or e-mail that I might get Wordsworth’s “The Ta- [email protected]. Single copies $4.95, plus bles Turned” quoted at me in a tone of re- $2.50 for postage and handling. Manuscript submissions are Former members, welcome, but we cannot assume responsibility for safe- proof: “We murder to dissect” (a gem I Harvard Society for Minority Rights keeping. Include stamped, self-addressed envelope for manuscript return. Persons wishing to reprint any portion and thousands of others picked up in of Harvard Magazine’s contents are required to write in ad- English 10). But given the new look of the HARD-TIMES TUNE vance for permission. Address inquiries to Catherine Many thanks A. Chute, publisher, at the address given above. concentration, that’s a kind of apprehen- for the article on George Copyright © 2009 Harvard Magazine Inc. sion I won’t need to have much longer, at Martin Lane, professor of Latin at Har- 2 July - August 2009 Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 LETTERS vard in the later nineteenth century The words he taught me were consider- (“Song for Hard Times,” The College ably more grim than the words in the Col- Pump, May-June, page 64). You ask, lege Pump. In my father’s version (proba- “Who knew that ‘One Meat Ball’ got its bly closer to the original) the “wretched start at Harvard?” but Lane and his con- man” of the song ends up this way: Publisher: Catherine A. Chute nection with the song were written up as He grabbed a pistol from the wall Finance and Administrative Director long ago as 1997 in Nota Bene, the and shot himself ’til he was dead. Irina Kuksin Director of Circulation and Fundraising newsletter of Harvard’s department of If anyone is interested in the old words, Felecia Carter the classics (Fall/Winter 1997, page 9, on they can e-mail me at editor@OurHer- Integrated Marketing Director line at www.fas.harvard.edu/~classics/ ald.com. Cara Ferragamo Murray newsletter/index.html). M.D. Drysdale ’66 Director of Advertising One might have hoped to see mention of Editor and Publisher, The Herald of Randolph Robert D. Fitta the George Martin Lane Chair in the Fac- Randolph, Vt. Advertising Account Manager ulty of Arts and Sciences. It was given by Abigail Williamson Lane’s daughter-in-law, born Emma DR. ROCK’S SELFLESS SCIENCE Integrated Marketing Design Manager Gildersleeve, and his granddaughter, I viewed your coverage of the John C. Jennifer Beaumont Classified Advertising Manager Katherine Lane Weems, a sculptor whose Rock papers with great personal interest Gretchen Bostr0m works include the two life-size bronze (“A Pioneer in Family Planning,” May- Circulation and Fundraising rhinos outside the Biological Laboratories. June, page 54). Manager: Lucia Whalen Christopher P.