The map used not to be the territory: to make it so has been the great modern project.
May 262021
Remembering
The obscurest epoch is today.
—Stevenson
May 172021
There is a great deal of ruin in a nation, and eventually it finds out how much.
May 102021
In less than two centuries communism has established itself as the apex predator on civilization, a killing machine: one admires it as one admires a hardy but lethal virus, or the great white shark.
May 072021
At the beginning of civilization we hate and fear the alien; at its height we study and attempt to understand him; and in its dotage we accept and support him, and at the end prefer him to our own.
Apr 012021
America Pays for Everything: A Brief History of the 20th Century
Mar 262021
The keyboard warrior is sure that, in 1930s Germany, he would have fought for the resistance and not the Party, as the believer in reincarnation is sure that, in a past life in ancient Rome, she was the emperor’s favorite concubine.
Jan 282021
Fascism has often been popular. Communism has never been popular.
Dec 102020
The obscure artist awaits the verdict of posterity, unable to compete with the living, expecting to compete with the dead.
Nov 242020
The 20th century, among its various disgraces, managed to give both “science” and “rationality” a bad name.
Oct 152020
History repeats itself, as farce that is increasingly less funny.