Moral Panic — Then and Now
Boycotts, de-platforming and witch hunts do “succeed” in the narrow sense that they can ruin lives. But they don’t change anyone’s privately held opinions.
Barrett Wilson
· 8 min read
History
A collection of 451 posts
Britain's Populist Revolt
Britain has produced a Brexit debate that is utterly dry, sterile, and completely lacking in imagination.
Matthew Goodwin
· 22 min read
Who Is to Blame for Haiti's Problems?
More than anywhere else, hope exists in environmental restoration and a healthy international credit.
Arthur Cook
· 12 min read
Reclaiming Work as a Virtue
My father taught me a simple lesson: when the alarm clock goes off, you get out of bed, have a shave, wash yourself, put your clothes on and go to work. You’ve got to be resilient and you’ve got to be focused on what you want to achieve.
Nyunggai Warren Mundine
· 12 min read
Inducing People's Employers to Fire Them Should Be a Civil Wrong
While social media inflames tensions, the law aims to remove emotion and passion from disputes.
Katy Barnett
· 18 min read
Burying a Child
Societies the world over have had to adapt to high rates of infant and child mortality, developing beliefs and social traditions to mitigate the impact of seeing so many of their offspring die
William Buckner
· 10 min read
Devastation and Denial — Cambodia and the Academic Left
Amazingly, even as Cambodia disintegrated, the Khmer Rouge benefitted from unsolicited apologetics from intellectuals at the West’s august universities.
Matthew Blackwell
· 19 min read
A Progressive Defence of Thomas Jefferson
A better strategy would be for the American Left to celebrate Jefferson and his progressive legacy, just as their forebears once did.
Ned Borninski
· 12 min read
Unfabling the East — A Review
Unfabling the East is a brilliant new book by Jürgen Osterhammel that goes back to the original sources, and carefully reconstructs the evolution of European views of Asia.
Michael Savage
· 6 min read
My Dissertation Disaster
This is your chance to write in depth about what interests you,” said my lecturers as I prepared to embark upon my History dissertation.
Jack Morgan Jones
· 11 min read
The Enlightenment's Cynical Critics
It is nearly impossible to find a human society that did not, at least at times, practice slavery and engage in barbarous acts of conquest and colonisation.
Katherine Kelaidis
· 5 min read
The Historian's Hubris
Several Stanford University campus groups began protesting a free speech initiative that seemed designed to stir up controversy and privilege right-wing voices.
Genevieve Weynerowski
· 8 min read
Giving the Devil His Due: Why Freedom of Inquiry in Science and Politics is Inviolable
Michael Shermer
· 14 min read
I Want to Hold Seminars on Empire — Interview with Nigel Biggar
Somewhat similarly, at Oxford, professor Nigel Biggar was targeted immediately after his project “Ethics and Empire” was launched.
Sumantra Maitra
· 5 min read
A Liberal's Case for Conservatives in History Departments
The liberal-to-leftist makeup of the discipline significantly influences the questions historians ask, the answers that we privilege, and the ways we teach and engage with the public.
Joseph Stieb
· 6 min read