In Notre Dame fire, a reminder of history’s complexity

When fire struck Paris’s Notre Dame cathedral last week, my first instinct, shared no doubt with millions across the globe, was to Google it. Yet then I reached for a yellowed edition of a 1950s book called “Notre Dame of Paris: The Biography of a Cathedral.”

The catalyst was less intellectual than personal: its author was Allan Temko, my late uncle. But his 300-page tour of how the cathedral, and Paris’s history – is far too complex, too nuanced and too rich to fit on a bumper sticker.