Military history tells the story of human nature at its great heights and terrible lows. by Bruce S. Thornton // Defining Ideas In the latter years of World War I, Winston Churchill met with the novelist and poet Siegfried Sassoon. Sassoon was a winner of the Military Cross––he single-handedly routed 60 Germans and captured a trench […]
Why Should We Study War? Read More »
Today, we treat politics as a sport, but it’s really a conflict of ideologies between federalists and technocrats. by Bruce S. Thornton // Defining Ideas The media and pundits treat politics like a sport. The significance of the recent agreement to postpone the debt crisis until January, for instance, is really about which party won and
The Political Debate We Need to Have Read More »
by Raymond Ibrahim // RaymondIbrahim.com How important, really, is history to current affairs? Do events from the 7th century—or, more importantly, how we understand them—have any influence on U.S. foreign policy today? By way of answer, consider some parallels between academia’s portrayal of the historic Islamic jihads and the U.S. government’s and media’s portrayal of contemporary Islamic
How Historic Revisionism Justifies Islamic Terrorism Read More »
by Victor Davis Hanson // PJ Media Today launches the Freedom Academy®, a project some 18 months in the making. In the present age, we need a meeting place where people can rediscover what freedom entails and appreciate the origins and role of liberty. The majority of Americans yearn for a rebirth of these values that have
The Launch of the Freedom Academy Read More »
by Bruce S. Thornton // FrontPage Magazine Barack Obama’s serial gross incompetence has elicited all sorts of explanatory theories. He’s a closet socialist, an Alinskyite radical, a secret Muslim, or an anti-American internationalist. Though some of Obama’s words and deeds give support to all these speculations, I prefer a simpler explanation. Obama is a Progressive––not a
Barack Obama and the Bad Ideas of Progressivism Read More »
by Raymond Ibrahim // RaymondIbrahim.com The full magnitude of the modern West’s ignorance of its own past recently struck me while rereading some early history books concerning the centuries-long jihad on Europe. The historical narrative being disseminated today simply bears very little resemblance to reality. Consider some facts for a moment: A mere decade after
Surreal and Suicidal: Modern Western Histories of Islam Read More »
History teaches us that nations must always respond vigorously to an enemy’s challenge, a lesson the U.S. should remember in Syria. by Bruce S. Thornton // Defining Ideas President Obama, responding to widespread criticisms that his handling of the Syrian chemical weapons crisis was clumsy and ad hoc, said, “I’m less concerned about style points, I’m
Prestige and Power in Statecraft Read More »
A classicist’s exemplary historical novel. by Albert Louis Zambone // BooksandCulture.com Classicists should infuriate other humanists, in the way that the handsome scholar-athlete who volunteers to help dyslexic children and is a genuinely nice guy should infuriate the guy who just made it onto the football team and has a hard time keeping up his
“The End of Sparta” — A Review Read More »
by Victor Davis Hanson // NRO’s The Corner There are lots of reasons why many of us who would like to punish the Assad-family regime for its long history of anti-American and savage and genocidal conduct fear the present course is unwise, not in America’s interest, and dangerous — at least as it has so far
On Poking Animals and Other Stupid Things Read More »
by Victor Davis Hanson // NRO’s The Corner We are on the verge of a war with Syria. Yet I don’t think the administration has as of yet articulated what its aims are and thus is confused about the means of obtaining them. Is the point of the impending military action to remove Assad, engage his
What Is the Syria Plan? Read More »