Infiltrating the Khmer Rouge – The Nate Thayer Story

. . Several months ago I highlighted the work of Nate Thayer, one of the more accomplished investigative journalists of the post-Cold War era, here at the Stage. Some of Mr. Thayer’s most impressive work dates to the 1990s, when he was the Far Eastern and Economic Review‘s man on the ground in Cambodia. One […]

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Meditations on Maoism — Ye Fu’s “Hard Road Home”

A great divide separates the worldviews of the average Chinese and American. The most profound description of this divide I have heard came from the mouth of a friend who has never been to America and who was not a historian nor accustomed to deep political reflection and debate. She concluded that Americans lived in […]

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The Nomadic Survival Strategy: Salzman’s 20 Observations

  A Taureg nomad in the Sahara.  Photograph by Carsten Peter, National Geographic. Β© “The nomadic strategy is one means by which people adapt to thinly spread resources and to the variability of the resources across space and over time. It is also a strategy for avoiding other deleterious environmental conditions, such as extreme heat […]

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Escaping the Echo Chamber of Modernity

Whilst Reading: A Portrait of Sofia Kramskoya, the Painter’s Wife (Ivan Kramskoi, 1866)Image Source.  Earlier this year I asked if the ‘great books’ have a place in the 21st century. Jospeh Sobran says that they do:  “Dogged readers of my columns will observe that I habitually quote a handful of classic writings, chiefly the Shakespeare […]

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A Few Stray Thoughts on World History and its Books

A popular 10th grade world history book by Elizabeth Ellis.Image Source. Earlier this week Al West wrote two short posts about world history and world history books that I found interesting. World history books? Mr. West does not like them: “Usually, they’re lacking in archaeological nous, have little or no accurate prehistoric content (a big […]

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