There is a sort of housework that is especially onerous, that which calls for decisions about what to pitch and what to hang on to. The right scrap of paper just might be worth something somewhere down the line, or perhaps some authority will at some point demand this or that document, and, satisfied, slink away. Here at The Wilson Quarterly, we’ve been knee-deep in this kind of housekeeping, excavating file cabinets whose contents date back, if not to the era of the original office malcontent, Bartleby the Scrivener, then to the 1970s.

Like Bartleby, most of us at the WQ had preferred not to deal with mounds of papers, but after some jostling, came to spell each other in front of the files, newer staff inspecting each document while old-timers urged them to just toss it all, and then regretfully dug through the recycle bin. Indeed, the files were full of archeological gems, evidencing a pre-Microsoft and Internet world when the publishing arts were as much manual as intellectual

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Earlier this month I donned a bonnet and lugged a washboard to Republic, Missouri, to act the part of a laundress at a reenactment of the Battle of Wilson’s Creek, the first major Civil War clash west of the Mississippi. Last month I was among the sweat-soaked thousands who lined a blazing hot field outside of Manassas, Virginia, to witness a reenactment of the First Battle of Bull Run. Since editing the WQ’s special section in the Summer issue on the best books about the Civil War I’ve become obsessed with the war myself—and particularly with understanding why it holds such an enduring fascination for reenactors and the spectators who watch the battles they stage. We’ve only just begun four long years of sesquicentennial commemoration.

The 21st century intrudes determinedly on these events—from the pickup trucks that haul cannons to the battlefield, to the power lines that swoop overhead, to the rows of concession stands that sell funnel cakes to tourists and reenactors alike. (In Missouri, I guiltily snuck away from my tent at the Union camp to buy a deep-fried Twinkie.) Still, when the reenactors (or living historians, as many prefer to be called) take the field, time rolls back. The battles are necessarily condensed, but the sight of blue and gray uniformed soldiers facing off against each other through gun smoke and cannon fire is moving.

The principal difficulty with this brand of living history is that, as Tony Horwitz observes

It’s hard to avoid a touch of schadenfreude at seeing Europeans who were so quick to lecture Americans about their feckless ways during the financial crisis now struggling with the consequences of their own wild borrowing. But I can’t say I felt any a few weeks ago when I traveled through Spain, a nation staggering under a massive burden of public and private debt and an unemployment rate in the neighborhood of 20 percent. It has the world’s 12th largest economy and, amazingly, it’s teetering on the edge of a financial vortex. According to a reckoning by The Economist, Spain has the least sustainable overall debt position of 14 developed countries it surveyed, including Greece and Ireland.

From the look of things, though, the Spanish have gotten more things of lasting value from their borrowing binge than we got from ours. Yes, they had a U.S.-style housing bubble, but the country is also bristling with new roads, train lines, and other infrastructure that will pay dividends for generations.

In many parts of the arid interior, the landscape is dominated by thousands of tall, gleaming white windmills that stretch along the ridgelines. Spain is the world’s number three producer of wind power (and wine too), behind the United States and Germany. In March, favorable weather helped wind power set a record in Spain, generating 21 percent of the nation’s electricity—and other renewable sources supplied an additional 21 percent. But