This week, we explore the wisdom of constraints on leaders, the roots of Britain’s break with the EU, and the historical echoes shaping Zelenskyy’s diplomacy.

Following acclaimed director Christopher Nolan’s adaptation of Homer’s Odyssey, Daniel Sánchez-Piñol recounts Odysseus’s famous decision to tie himself to the mast and how it symbolizes the wisdom of leader guardrails.

A decade after Britain voted to leave the European Union, Carl Schramm examines some root causes of Britain’s status.

David Armitage discusses Ukrainian President Zelenskyy’s diplomatic efforts as mirroring the urgent foreign missions of the American Continental Congress.

Following news that Caltrans is considering “high-speed buses,” Craig Eyermann draws on California’s bullet-train fiasco to explain why central planning favors ambition over practicality—and why state planners keep recycling old mistakes.

Happy reading.

Jonathan Hofer
Managing Editor