In the eleventh century, in Persia, there lived a mathematician named Ghiyathuddin Abulfath Omar bin Ibrahim al-Khayyami--or, Omar, son of Abraham, the tent-maker. Omar wrote poetry, and while his rhymes received little attention in their day, they were rediscovered and translated into beautiful English--more than seven centuries later--by a gentleman and scholar named Edward FitzGerald. It was a meeting of minds, a great collaboration of the past...

Ominous threats filled the years around World War II - Nazism, the escalating plight of European Jews, Fascism, Japanese militarism, and racism. Arthur Szyk (1894-1951), the great 20th-century 'activist in art, ' confronted the turbulent, hate-filled period with forceful artistic depictions caricaturing Hitler, Mussolini, and Hirohito as the evil architects of their regimes' destructive and inhumane policies. 'Arthur Szyk: Soldier in Art' explores...