Category: History and Historiography

Walter Isaacson On Ben Franklin

View in browser   The Dishcast with Andrew Sull… Walter Isaacson On Ben Frankl… 0:00 1:37:12   Listen now   Walter Isaacson On Ben Franklin Remembering one of the greatest Americans — and the dangers of arbitrary power. Andrew Sullivan Jul 4 ∙ Paid READ IN APP (It’s […]

The Class of 2026

AI is doing to the universities what Gutenberg did to the monasteries John Carter Jun 10, 2025 Caspar David Friedrich, Monastery Graveyard in the Snow By the late middle ages monasteries were spectacularly wealthy. They were immune from taxation, and possessed vast land holdings thanks to generous donations […]

The Sociology of Geopolitics

Atlantis or Athens: The War Between Land and Sea in Every Soul Alexander Markovics Jun 30, 2025 Alexander Markovics conjures a war map of spirits where Atlantis and Athens rise again within every soul, calling each to choose between the rooted hero of the land and the drifting […]

How Revolutions Solve Debt Crises

Using the French and Russian Revolutions as Examples Peter Turchin Jun 13, 2025 It looks now that the spat between Elon Musk and Donald Trump was a short-lived tempest that quickly blew over. But the deep structural contradictions between various factions making up the MAGA coalition remain. The […]

Sugar Pilled

Gavin Francis What Do You Expect? The surprising power of placebos demonstrates how the mind influences both the experience of ill health and the evolution of illness. Michael Kazin Bridging the Gap Nick Witham’s Popularizing the Past portrays five American historians who published popular books that sacrificed neither intellectual depth […]

A deep state of denial

Posted on June 10, 2025 by winter oak by Paul Cudenec (who reads the article here) I imagine that everyone reading this will be aware of the role of the deep state, that murky self-concealing entity built around various “intelligence agencies” such as the CIA, MI5, MI6 and […]

Cycles of Authority: Mapping Six Modern Waves of Modern Autocratic Rule

From Post-Napoleonic Restoration to Contemporary Electoral Authoritarianism Troy Keith Preston May 29, 2025 Since the early nineteenth century, experiments with liberal representative government have cyclically given way to concentrated executive rule under diverse historical circumstances. Far from being a relic of the distant past, autocratic governance has resurfaced […]

Kamikaze Youth and the Revival of Myth

Towards a literature that lives, acts, and builds in the shadow of sacrifice. Chōkōdō Shujin May 29, 2025 Chōkōdō Shujin invokes the kamikaze’s poetic soul to call for a new literature of action, where myth and youth fuse into cultural renewal. An inner surge of energy, a spirit […]

San Tanenhaus On Bill Buckley

View in browser   The Dishcast with Andrew Sull… San Tanenhaus On Bill Buckley 0:00 2:40:37   Listen now   San Tanenhaus On Bill Buckley His new biography uncovers a deeply complicated figure on the American right. Andrew Sullivan May 23 ∙ Paid READ IN APP Sam is […]

The Desolation of Smog

Sponsored by Reaktion Books Jonathan Mingle An EPA Without Science The agency’s rollbacks under Lee Zeldin suggest that Trump’s war on the administrative state has become, effectively, a war on the future. Alice Kaplan Zionism Without Zion Rachel Cockerell’s family saga shows that in the search for a […]

“Make Iberia Great Again”

An invitation to join our imaginal al-Andalus Kevin Barrett May 15, 2025 Cross-posted from Al-Andalus Tribune and Al-Andalus Tribune Substack I saw her not with these eyes of clay, But with inner gaze born of love’s own ray. Al-Andalus—shimmering face of the Real, Unfolding where only the heart […]

The Lost Promise of Reconstruction

Adam Hochschild One Brief Shining Moment Manisha Sinha’s history of Reconstruction sheds fresh light on the period that fleetingly opened a door to a different America. Rachel Nolan ‘There’s Nothing for Me Here’ What caused Venezuela’s collapse, and who is responsible? A recent memoir tells the story as […]

In memory of Colette

In memory of Colette by anon (not verified)May 2, 2025 From El Salto Some vital notes from Buenaventura Durruti’s partner, Émilienne Morin, on their daughter Colette on the occasion of the latter’s recent death in France. A few days ago, Colette, also known as Diana, whose married name […]

The Prelude to the Civil War

View this email in your browser READ ON SITE NOW Decade of Disunion: How Massachusetts and South Carolina Led the Way to Civil War, 1849-1861, by Robert W. Merry. Simon & Schuster, 528 pages. With Decade of Disunion: How Massachusetts and South Carolina Led the Way to Civil War, […]

On the Death of the Medieval Idea

by James Doone Arktos Journal May 05, 2025 James Doone explores how the medieval synthesis of Roman order, Germanic heroism, and Christian spirituality once crowned Europe’s zenith, only to be fractured by schism, rationalism, and the rise of materialist modernity — leaving a Faustian civilisation adrift, longing for […]

David Horowitz, ROT IN HELL!

David Horowitz, ROT IN HELL! When civil rights worker and activist Kwame Ture passed away in 1998, David Horowitz wrote he “was a bad man, and the world will not miss him.” Those words may apply to Horowitz more than Ture, or anyone else that Horowitz hated.David Horowitz’s […]

Nazis in the Family Tree

Sponsored by Poetry Foundation Francine Prose Poisoning the Family Tree Joe Dunthorne’s Children of Radium is an account of his search for information about his great-grandfather, a German Jewish scientist who helped develop chemical weapons for the Nazis. Jesse McCarthy Return to My Native Land Vincent O. Carter’s forgotten novel Such Sweet […]

The Assimilation Myth: America

Persistence and the Not-So Melting Pot Inquisitive Bird Apr 09, 2025 Introduction When it comes to the topic of immigration, it is widely believed that assimilation is both important (normatively) and rapid and widespread (descriptively). Rapid assimilation is often simply taken for granted. For example, in economic analyses […]

Contra Principem, Part 2: The Prince

Troy Southgate Apr 11, 2025 MACHIAVELLI’S Il Principe was written in 1513, after its author had been removed from his important diplomatic role with the Florentine bureaucracy and then returned to his secluded farmhouse. In 1532, when the book first appeared in printed form, five years after his […]

Contra Principem, Part 1: An Italian in the Sixteenth Century – Machiavelli and his World

Troy Southgate Apr 10, 2025 Introduction The name Niccolò Machiavelli (1469-1527) has become a popular euphemism for deceit, ruthlessness and manipulation. As a politician, diplomat and philosopher, Machiavelli spent his twilight years producing what eventually became one of the Renaissance period’s most notorious and reviled tracts. First published […]