In one of the Stage’s most popular posts, I asked if the “far right” and “far left” are really just two peas of the same pod. On the face of things America seems divided between two hostile cultures. Yet look beneath the surface and a different picture emerges: underneath partisan rhetoric are two parties united […]
This week I finished Sallust’s The Jugurthine War (translated by A.J. Woodman), Michael J. Lotus and James C. Bennett’s America 3.0, and Vaclav Smil’s fantastic The Earth’s Biosphere: Evolution, Dynamics, and Change. Before the month is over I hope to read or finish: William Freehling’s Road to Disunion: Secessionists at Bay, 1776-1850 Ji Junxiang’s The Orphan of Zhao. […]
It is unusual for me to read a book aimed at popular conservative audiences. I am something of a disaffected conservative. Crony capitalism and government overreach have proved to be bipartisan endeavors, and I have long lost faith that the Republican party can ever be more than an organ of America’s governing elite. [1] Outside […]
A protester holds up a Turkish flag with a picture of Kemal Ataturk on it. Image Source: AP Photo/Kostis Sniroris. 3 June 2013. The riots and protests that rocked Istanbul this week have taken many in the West by surprise. I have been astonished at how poorly Western outlets have explained what these riots are about and […]
In an effort to prepare for the release of Iron Man 3 I devoted a several hours over the past few weeks to all of the Marvel Studio blockbusters I missed when serving as a missionary for the LDS Church. These films inspired the following observation: Asians Americans [1] are now an established part of America’s popular culture.The […]
Occasionally I come across attempts to explain the broad course of Chinese history in reference to China’s geography. These arguments tend to focus on the unified empires of Chinese history. Always contrasting Chinese history with the European experience, they suggest that China’s political unity and Europe’s perpetual disunity are reflections of the unbroken terrain of […]
