History

Our Contrary President

by Bruce S. Thornton // FrontPage Magazine Remember the “contrary” Sioux warrior from Little Big Man? He did everything backwards––said “hello” for “goodbye,” washed in sand instead of water. Our president is the foreign policy contrary. He has gotten backwards every maxim of proven wisdom for dealing with the rest of the world. Teddy Roosevelt counseled, “Speak […]

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Needed: A Tragic Hero

In good times, the larger-than-life figure is an affront; in crisis, he is necessary. by Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online Tragic heroes — from Sophocles’ Ajax and Antigone to the Western films’ Shane and Woodrow Call — can be defined in a variety of ways. But the common archetype is a larger-than-life figure. He

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Back to our 20th-century future

by Victor Davis Hanson // Tribune Media Services We may be in the era of Facebook and fracking. But 2013 is still beginning to look a lot like the cataclysmic century we just left behind. More people probably died from the wars of the 20th century than from the battles of the prior 2,500 years combined. The bloodiest

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Same old warfare?

by Victor Davis Hanson // TLS A Review of three books: Saltpeter: The mother of gunpowder by David Cressy (Oxford University Press, 237pp) Napalm by Robert M. Neer (Belknap Press, 310pp) Warrior Geeks: How twenty-first-century technology is changing the way we fight and think about war by Christopher Coker (US: Columbia University Press, 330pp) Share This

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Revolutionary Tribunals

Our courts have too often become expressions of the popular will. by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online In ancient Athens, popular courts of paid jurors helped institutionalize fairness. If a troublemaker like Socrates was thought to be a danger to the popular will, then he was put on trial for inane charges like “corrupting

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The Glue Holding America Together

As it fragments into various camps, the country is being held together by a common popular culture. by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online By a.d. 200, the Roman Republic was a distant memory. Few citizens of the global Roman Empire even knew of their illustrious ancestors like Scipio or Cicero. Millions no longer spoke Latin. Italian emperors were a

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A Brief History of Media Bias

Who said that newspapers are supposed to report the news in an objective and fact-based way? by Bruce S. Thornton Defining Ideas The revelation that the Department of Justice acquired and read the phone records of Associated Press editors and reporters does not change the obvious fact that the mainstream media have been reliable supporters

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The Stagnant Mediterranean

Socialism and Islamism don’t foster a climate of economic growth and security. by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online From the heights of Gibraltar you can see Africa about nine miles away to the south — and gaze eastward on the seemingly endless Mediterranean, which stretches 2,400 miles to Asia.  Share This

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