Skip to main content

Subscribe to Smithsonian magazine and get a FREE tote.

Stories from James Deutsch

The moral lessons of the story of “Beauty and the Beast” are the same as those found in many other folktales: virtue and hard work are rewarded; prodigal pride is punished; and marriage lasts happily ever after.

The Storied, International Folk History of Beauty and The Beast

Tales about a bride and her animal groom have circulated orally for centuries in Africa, Europe, India and Central Asia

The new Broadway hit revival of Fiddler on the Roof deliberately breaks with tradition in its opening and closing scenes.

The Broadway Revival of “Fiddler” Offers a Profound Reaction to Today’s Refugee Crisis

Popular musicals on Broadway are regarded as escapist, but the worldwide issue of migration and displacement is inescapable

Why the Story of Cinderella Endures and Resonates

A Smithsonian folklorist follows the ancient tale with a particularly American twist

Fireworks over Beijing during 2013's Lantern Festival

To Limit Pollution, The Chinese Are Faced With Giving Up an Ancient Tradition

For the Chinese, who invented both gun powder and fireworks, foregoing old traditions may clean up the air—just a bit

No Man's Land could be the most terrifying of places. "Men drowning in shell-holes already filled with decaying flesh," wrote one scholar.

The Legend of What Actually Lived in the “No Man’s Land” Between World War I’s Trenches

Born of the horrors of trench warfare, a ghoulish tale of scavengers and scofflaws took hold 100 years ago

If there had been Academy Awards in the mid-1920s, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer’s The Big Parade produced by Irving Thalberg, directed by King Vidor, and starring John Gilbert and Renée Adorée, would have swept the prizes.

The Blockbuster World War I Film that Brought Home the Traumatic Impact of War

The blockbuster silent film The Big Parade is among the first to explore the psychological trauma of war

Page 2 of 2