Wounded honor provoked duels; wounded feelings provoke lawsuits.
Sep 112023
Remembering
The obscurest epoch is today.
—Stevenson
Sep 072023
We repeat history because we cannot reverse it.
Jun 232023
This is not the end of history. It is not even the beginning of the end of history. But it is, perhaps, the end of the end of history.
Jun 132023
Nearly everything in history nearly didn’t happen.
Jun 082023
The history of Western art would be entirely different if, 500 years ago, we had known that the Greeks painted their sculpture.
May 122023
For every empire history offers a hundred reasons why it fell, when what we need to know is why it lasted.
Mar 072023
The East, the West, the classical and Christian, the medieval and modern, the peasantry, the proletariat, the bourgeoisie, the 18th, 19th, 20th century — what intellectual malfeasance shelters under the definite article!
Feb 242023
What drives the proverbial cycle of good times and hard times? In part weakness and strength, mostly idleness and occupation.
Feb 232023
History has been written by the winners, as they were usually literate.
Nov 182022
Certain villains achieve martyrdom by the peculiar luck of being murdered by men still more villainous.