People in Broward who never go to Miami miss out on one of South Florida's great experiences - sitting in the courtyard of Books & Books on a balmy evening.

My wife and I did this Friday, at the Coral Gables store, with the poet Michael Hettich and his wife Colleen, the owner Mitchell Kaplan and the travel writer Tony Horwitz, who had just spoken inside about his most recent book, A Voyage Long and Strange, about the early explorers to this continent.

During his talk, Horwitz expressed puzzlement, mixed with dismay, that American history as it is taught in schools tends to begin in 1620 with the pilgrims at Plymouth Colony, when there were numerous explorers and settlements before them. He suggested that if these other stories - involving the French, the Spanish, the Portuguese, etc. - were better known, we would have an easier time today dealing with multiculturalism. Because we would see that it is nothing new; it's been our condition from the start.

He also mentioned how often the various groups reverted to national stereotypes. While the English were starving in Jamestown, he said, the French were finding berries and other wonderful things to eat in cold Canada. They started a gastronomic society. They remarked in their journals on the attractiveness of the local women.

In the courtyard, the conversation flowed from travel to children to politics to journalism. A former foreign correspondent, Horwitz talked about arriving in a foreign country with very little knowledge of the place and having to find his way. He contrasted this with British correspondents, who tend to be old hands, fluent in the language, versed in the culture, seeped in the history. And then, after American correspondents spend a few years in a country, and begin to understand it, they are moved to another, where they have to start from scratch. A practice, when you think about it, strange and counterproductive.