A Minority of One
A valuable new collection of wartime letters written by Leslie Fiedler shows how politically astute the budding literary critic was about communism.
Ron Capshaw
· 7 min read
History
A collection of 446 posts
Ancient DNA and the Return of a Disgraced Theory
This is a story of some of the greatest findings in modern research, and of the dismal narrow-mindedness and motivated reasoning displayed by scholars who ought to know better.
Tristan S. Rapp
· 14 min read
A New Dark Age?
Political scientists have always extolled the ideal of the informed voter, but information has become a cacophony.
George Case
· 9 min read
Have We Forgotten Weimar?
This is not the first time Germany has resorted to censorship in the mistaken belief that the state can contain dangerous ideas. The last time they tried this, it facilitated the rise of the Nazis.
Jay Sophalkalyan
· 12 min read
America’s Grief Cycle: The Negotiation Phase
How Trump’s tariffs and foreign policy signal the third phase of US decline on the world stage.
Andrew Roberts
· 7 min read
How to Tell if You’re Living in a Patriarchy
Arguments that patriarchy exists in the West today are largely dependent on reinventions of the concept that would be better dispensed with.
Helen Pluckrose
· 16 min read
Red Spies and Lies
Clay Risen’s new book about the American “Red Scare” emphasises the injustices of anti-communism but minimises the true extent and danger of communist infiltration.
Ronald Radosh
· 24 min read
Stalin, Putin, and the Corruption of History
The history of Soviet totalitarianism is now being rewritten.
Andy Owen
· 13 min read
Nicholas II, Aššurbanipal, and Marco Polo Walk into a Bookstore…
Quillette editor Jonathan Kay reviews three newly published history books about the Assyrian Empire, the fall of the Romanovs, and the travels of Marco Polo.
Jonathan Kay
· 16 min read
From Imperium to Expansionism
Donald Trump is often described as an imperialist and an expansionist and these terms are usually used interchangeably. Neither of these descriptions is meant to be flattering, but the larger problem is that they are imprecise.
Ronald W. Dworkin
· 13 min read
Were the Nazis Left-Wing?
The parallels between Nazism and communism complicate the standard left–right divide.
Gerfried Ambrosch
· 10 min read
Architecture as Revenge
Brady Corbet’s panoramic epic, ‘The Brutalist,’ may be technically brilliant, but it is a cheat and a fraud.
Charlotte Allen
· 15 min read
Shakespeare Versus the Girlboss
Jodi Picoult’s latest novel is a ham-fisted expression of cultural rage, embodying the most anodyne values of corporate human-resources departments.
Marilyn Simon
· 14 min read
Agitprop at the AHA
If the American Historical Association formally adopts a resolution accusing Israel of “scholasticide,” it could destroy the organisation’s reputation for serious scholarship.
Jeffrey Herf
· 15 min read
Memorial Daze
Notions of injury or exclusion are often based on shifting cultural sensitivities and political pressures, rather than on any permanent, universal measure of good and evil.
George Case
· 7 min read