【推荐1】The set is simple: a little fabric, a chair, maybe some lowers. Its users are more complex (复杂的): an American mother who takes her children to visit their Mexican father every weekend, and a nine-year-old boy who wants to “have a memory of us together” before his father goes back to California. They pause what they’re doing, sit for a photo, and leave with a printed copy. Behind the camera is Alexia Webster, a South African photographer who sets up street studios around the world. At Studio Transfroriterizo, her project in Tijuana, Mexico, passing characters offer a look at life on the world’s busiest land border: Every day nearly 100,000 people legally crass from Tijuana to San Diego, California, at the San Ysidro border.

More than a decade, ago, Webster was photographing for the United Nations in a refugee (难民) camp in Kenya when a man told her he’d watched photographers visit for 15 years but didn’t have a single picture of himself or his family. Many of Webster’s subjects had escaped from war, leaving personal archives (档案) behind. One photo could help them rebuild. In 2011, with people to pose for a free session. She printed their pictures on the spot. “Primarily it’s for them, for their kids, their grandkids, their lovers, their friends,” she says. “It’s a record of who they are.” Webster has since put up studios in other places, from the streets of Mumbai, India to a refugee camp in South Sudan.

She gives few instructions from behind the camera. “The idea of the project is for people to rebuild their archives and reaffirm their identity,” Webster says. “I like them to determine how they want their photo to be.”

【推荐2】A young Jewish girl begins a diary just as World War II is about to break out in Europe. She records the details of her daily life. Eventually, the diary comes to a heartbreaking end with the girl shot to death by the Nazis. However, it’s not the story of Anne Frank. This is Renia’s Diary, a journal that spent decades stored away in a safe box. Now it’s coming off the press with the help of Renia’s niece and sister.

For a long time, Elizabeth Bellak didn’t even know that her older sister Renia had kept a diary as a teenager in Poland. She was totally stunned that one day in her 50s, someone brought the diary to her. She began to read, but couldn’t get very far —the task proved too painful. Therefore, she just put it in the basement and didn’t think about it.

Alexandra Renia Bellak, Elizabeth’s daughter, who was named after her aunt, grew up knowing about the locked diary. As getting older, she became more interested in it. “If I could read this diary, maybe I’ll unearth (揭露) some things from the past,” she thought.

Finally, Alexandra got the diary from its hiding place. She turned shocked after reading the first few pages. “It’s the description of a wonderful, intelligent girl who showed great courage in dire circumstances. My aunt’s world comes to life as the diary shifts between the daily concerns of a teenage girl and the war.”

Elizabeth and Alexandra are thrilled that Renia’s diary has been published. “It is a story that needs to be heard now more than ever. We should never repeat the same types of racism (种族主义) and prejudice and hate that lead to active violence,” Alexandra says.

【推荐3】Is it possible to persuade mankind to live without war? War is an ancient institution, which has occurred ever since men were organized into units larger than the family. In the past human race managed to survive it. Why should it not continue to survive even if wars go on occurring from time to time? Moreover, people like war, and will feel frustrated without it. And without war there will be no adequate opportunity for heroism or self-sacrifice.

Modem technology has changed this. Either man will abolish war, or war will abolish man. For the present, it is nuclear weapons that cause the most serious danger, but bacteriological or chemical weapons may, before long, offer an even greater threat. If we succeed in abolishing nuclear weapons, our work will not be done. It will never be done until we have succeeded in abolishing war. To do this, we need to persuade mankind to look upon international questions in a new way, not as contests of force, in which the victory goes to the side which is most skillful in killing people, but by arbitration (通过仲裁) in accordance with agreed principles of law. It is not easy to change very old mental habits, but this is what must be attempted.

There are those who say that the adoption of this or that ideology (意识形态) would prevent war. I believe this to be a big error. All ideologies are based upon dogmatic (武断的) statements that are, at best, doubtful, and at worst, totally false. Their followers believe in them so fanatically that they are willing to go to war in support of them.

The movement of world opinion during the past few years has been very largely such as we can welcome. It has become a commonplace that nuclear war must be avoided. Of course very difficult problems remain in the world, but the spirit in which they are being approached is a better one than it was some years ago. It has begun to be thought, even by the powerful men who decide whether we shall live or die, that negotiations should reach agreements even if both sides do not find these agreements wholly satisfactory. It has begun to be understood that the important conflict nowadays is not between different countries, but between man and the atom bomb.