A review of A Brief History of Equality by Thomas Piketty, Belknap Press, 288 pages (April 2022) As I write this, the city of Rotterdam is considering a request to dismantle one of its historic bridges to grant Jeff Bezos’s super-yacht (too monstrous for normal ports) safe passage to
Reports that Twitter has accepted Elon Musk’s offer to buy the company for $54.20 a share have provoked much handwringing about his attitudes to free speech, especially with respect to possible changes in the social media platform’s moderation policies. So far, the discussion has been a largely
From the beginning of the invasion of Ukraine, justifications offered for Moscow’s aggression must have struck most non-Russian observers as unrealistic, to say the least. Many observers were incredulous that any educated Russian could possibly believe Putin’s claim that Ukraine required “denazification and demilitarization,” or that the country
As the scale of her defeat in the Presidential election was announced, Marine Le Pen, leader of the Rassemblement National (RN), was quick to gloss it. “Millions of our compatriots,” she declared (in a speech that must have been prepared for weeks), “have chosen the national camp and change,” and
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has revived the Western alliance. After years of drift and self-doubt, the West has been reminded of its historic and institutional uniqueness by seeing the contrast between the atavistic revanchism of Vladimir Putin and the heroism of Ukraine’s defenders. Once again, our collective purpose
This month, the New York Times ran a two-part podcast series titled When Texas Went After Transgender Care, detailing that state’s effort to ban “elective procedures for gender transitioning, including reassignment surgeries that can cause sterilization, mastectomies, removals of otherwise healthy body parts, and administration of puberty-blocking drugs or
Quillette podcast host Jonathan Kay speaks with documentary filmmaker Rob Montz about self-made education expert Roland G. Fryer Jr.—who bucked Harvard’s progressive party line on race and education, and then got targeted with dubious harassment claims.
A decent and competent Left might point out that France stands to gain exactly nothing from an “alliance” with Putin’s dictatorship proposed by the likes of Le Pen.
In my second year as a high school teacher, my school district rolled out its “iPad Initiative.” Each of our district’s five high schools issued an iPad to every student. Within a few years, students at the middle school and the elementary level would have them, as well. Like
"In this time, party hatred was far more bitter than in our day.… In those almost forgotten days the same theatre could scarcely hold certain Royalist and Liberal journalists; the most malignant provocation was offered, glances were like pistol-shots, the least spark produced an explosion of quarrel.… There were
Land ownership has shaped civilizations from their beginnings, with a constant interplay between great powers—the aristocracy, the state, the Church, the emperor—and those below them. History has oscillated between periods of greater dispersion of ownership, and those that favored greater concentration. Today, we live in an era of
Dear Readers, We're very grateful for all new subscribers to Quillette! Not since 2018 have we experienced such rapid growth in our subscriptions. If you've just discovered us – welcome! We hope you enjoy our offerings. Your subscription means we are able to deliver the content you&
A Review of Liberalism and Its Discontents by Francis Fukuyama. Profile Books, 178 pages (March 2022) Liberalism is in bad odour. In the third decade of the 21st century, it is an ideology with few friends. Derided with equal vigour by populists on the Right and “progressives” on the Left,
On April 14th, Elon Musk, billionaire CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, made an offer to buy Twitter. He wants to take the publicly-traded social media platform private, purchasing 100 percent of the company at $US54.20 per share, an $US8 per-share premium over the stock’s price on April 13th.
Over the years, Le Tartuffe ou l’Imposteur has been one my favorite Molière plays to study and direct with my undergraduate students at Princeton University. I find it to be the best point of origin from which to discover his body of work. As often with Molière, the plot