The Problems with Longtermism
The further we look into the future, the less certain we can be about our predictions and plans.
A collection of 130 posts
The further we look into the future, the less certain we can be about our predictions and plans.
Adam Curtis’s new BBC series provides a unique insight into Russia’s late-twentieth-century collapse.
Mikhail Khodorkovsky’s new book offers a profile in courage.
Jann Wenner’s attempt to set the record straight only confirms the unattractive picture painted by his critics.
A review of Arthur C. Brooks’s new book, ‘From Strength to Strength.’
An outstanding new book tells the story of a wildly successful literary hoax. But it was just one of many.
Sexual liberty reconsidered.
What makes 'Alone' endlessly fascinating and deeply moving is the mirror it holds up to our broken lives.
If 'The Strange Death of Europe' was a requiem for a stricken continent, 'War on the West' is intended to be an act of defiance.
Kirchick’s book is a reminder of a shameful past, but its very existence is also evidence of the progress that the West’s democracies have made in the years since.
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.
Hofstadter argued that McCarthyism was simply the latest iteration of a longstanding American tradition.
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
A review of The Right: The Hundred-Year War for American Conservatism by Matthew Continetti, Basic Books, 496 pages (April 2022) “So inevitable and yet so completely unforeseen” was Alexis de Tocqueville’s verdict on the French Revolution. Much the same can be said of Donald Trump’s hostile takeover of
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