History
Capitalism and politics
-- Walter Russell Mead, God and Gold: Britain, America, and the Making of the Modern World (New York : Alfred A. Knopf, 2007), pg. 309.
History
History
The good old days
"Today we reel at the speed of globalization and long for the placid, pastoral times of, say, Edwardian Britain in the years before World War I. Yet people living in those times did not think their lives were placid or that the pace of change was slow. As suffragettes
History
The limits of Stewart and Colbert
"Conversely and significantly, the vast majority of the joke tellers who were denounced and brought before special Nazi courts received a mild punishment, if any. Usually they were let off with a warning. 'Whispered jokes' were a surrogate for, and not a manifestation of, social conscience and
History
Life after the end of sacrifice
In his book The Ruin of Kasch, Roberto Calasso argues that humanity lost an important outlet when we banned the ritual of sacrifice, because the craving to sacrifice now permeates life rather than being bounded and limited by the tradition of a ritual. The Aztecs killed a few to (as
California
The Shadow of the Golden Age
The years 1945 to 1965 were the Golden Age of the Golden State. The economy was booming and jobs were plentiful. A torrent of tax revenue (and the bond issues it supported) led to widespread expansion of the parks system, the university system, K-12 schools, and public works. In 1962,
History
How libraries reinvented knowledge
Ian F. McNeely and Lisa Wolverton note how the development by the Greeks of libraries, as storehouses of the written word, changed the possibilities of knowledge from what they had been in a purely oral society: Every library comfortably contains writings and juxtaposes ideas that, if they were represented by
History
The suffering of Italy
Rome is known as the Eternal City. James J. O'Donnell notes that Italy could be called the Eternal Victim: After [the period of 476-535], Italy as a whole would know no comparable unity, prosperity, and freedom from warfare until the 1950s. -- The Ruin of the Roman Empire
History
One other effect from the '08 election...
During the new Obama administration and 111th Congress, the old South will be shut out of power, for only the third time since 1930. The other two times were brief (1953-54 and 1965-66). If Obama does well, then the coming dry spell for the old South could match the post-Reconstruction
History
Armistice Day
The 11th minute. Of the 11th hour. Of the 11th day. Of the 11th month. Ninety years ago today, Europe ended its first attempt at collective suicide. At war's end, France had suffered 1.7 million dead and 4.3 million wounded from a population of 39 million;
History
Obama's biggest accomplishment
It just hit me what Barack Obama's biggest accomplishment was this week. Let's look at the last three Democratic presidential wins. When Clinton won in 1992 and 1996, Republicans could blame Perot. When Carter won in 1976, Republicans could blame the long-departed Nixon. Obama's
History
What matters to the GOP
When was the last time the Republican Party chose a presidential candidate who had neither been a fighter pilot nor been wounded in wartime? Ronald Reagan in 1984.
History
Will the cycle be unbroken?
At The American Scene, Jim Manzi speculates that we are seeing a liberal realignment in the 2008 election. I agree that a realignment is happening, though I have no idea if it will turn out to be liberal or whether it will happen this year or in 2012. However, it