Assault in Alabama
Revisiting the attack on Nat King Cole.
Thomas Doherty
· 10 min read
History
A collection of 345 posts
Slavery and Steam
The dangers of forfeiting societal sustainability.
David Foster
· 7 min read
The Classically Greek Roots of Civilizational Self-Doubt
The Greeks were the first of all peoples to look at themselves in the mirror.
Benedict Beckeld
· 10 min read
Troubadour at War
Leonard Cohen’s visit to Israel in its darkest hour.
Ari David Blaff
· 8 min read
The Opposite of Junk
A dozen journals left to us by my wife’s Scottish grandmother were destined for the recycling bin—until we took a look at what was inside.
Herman Goodden
· 11 min read
Science and Civil Liberties: The Lost ACLU Lecture of Carl Sagan
Around 1987, Sagan gave an uncannily prescient lecture to the Illinois state chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union.
Steven Pinker, Harvey Silverglate
· 15 min read
The Alchemist Emperor of Prague
As the Holy Roman Empire descended into religious conflicts, its Habsburg ruler surrounded himself with magicians, astrologers, and scryers.
Martyn Rady
· 8 min read
Conquering a Balkan Blood Feud—in Bovey, Minnesota
An American family descended from Serbian and Croatian immigrants finds a way to overcome old-world hatreds.
Jon Zobenica
· 15 min read
Israel’s Perilous Moment, Then and Now
Herf tells the complicated and often surprising story of the internal political struggles in Western capitals, as well as in the halls of the United Nations, that erupted at the end of the Second World War.
Sol Stern
· 14 min read
The Tragedy of American Diplomacy: A Rebuttal
Williams, W. A. (1962). The Tragedy of American Diplomacy. New York: Dell Pub. Co. When the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) pinned Putin’s recent invasion of Ukraine on NATO’s “imperialist expansionism,” many policymakers and journalists on both sides of the political spectrum lambasted the organization for its half-hearted
Niranjan Shankar
· 15 min read
The Aztec Way of Empire
Six imperial rulers expanded the Mexica domain from 1430 until 1519, until the Spaniards first set foot in Tenochtitlan and disrupted the Aztec imperial agenda.
Frances F. Berdan
· 11 min read
Putinism and the Stalinist Legacy
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
Tomislav Kardum
· 7 min read
Remembering the Jewish Yugoslavia that the Nazis Destroyed
The story of how I came to know one of those survivors, and chronicle her life.
Geoffrey C. Kabat
· 12 min read
Jennifer Raff’s ‘Origin: A Genetic History of the Americas’—A Review
Jennifer Raff’s Origin: A Genetic History of the Americas was published with much fanfare in February, garnering a rave New York Times review. And as of this writing, it is listed as one of the top 10 books about genetics on Amazon. The success reflects the fact that the
Elizabeth Weiss
· 13 min read
How the Christian Bible Became Separated Into ‘Old’ and ’New’
There is no firmly established technical term for the Bible in Judaism. The Hebrew scriptures may simply be referred to as “the Bible,” and the term “Jewish Bible” is sometimes used to distinguish it from the Christian Bible. In Hebrew, terms such as miqra (“scripture”) or kitve haqqodesh (“sacred texts”
Konrad Schmid and Jens Schröter
· 10 min read