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 […]
A collection of articles, essays, and blog post of merit. TOP BILLING “How To Lose a War: A Primer“Mark Safranski. Zenpundit.com. 28 July 2013. Since Pakistan is now attempting to get its victory over the United States in Afghanistan formally ratified, now seemed to be a good time to reflect on the performance of American […]
No time for substantive commentary tonight, but I wanted to point my readers to four articles worth their time. All concern life before the Neolithic Revolution – that is, human society before the advent of agriculture and the civilizations built upon it. There are many common misconceptions about hunter-gather societies. This is partly because there […]
This post was originally published in December 2010. A comment thread at Zenpundit’s place has inspired me to resurrect it. I recently read a book by survivalist blogger James Wesley Rawles, How to Survive the End of the World as We Know It. This reading has prompted a few thoughts on the aims and validity of […]
Infographic from Ty Morteson. Image Source.One might add “Governments consistently bails out corporate interests with tax-payer money” to the center of the diagram. Several months ago I published a post that describes how the extreme partisanship emanating from Washington is a really just a surface veneer that covers a plutocratic consensus lying beneath. [1] Ashwin Parameswaran, blogging […]
In a recent post discussing what we know about energy consumption and economic growth in post-recession America, I wrote something that is not true: “History has shown that increases in energy efficiency lead to more energy consumption, not less.” [1] I will repeat: I made a mistake. I will take this opportunity to explain both […]
Han Gaozu- Deified Founder of the Han DynastyImage Source Many drivers shape the course of world history. With a few exceptions, I lend little respect to those works that try to explain all of history as the result of one great thing – geography, genetics, climate, culture, class conflict, freedom, or whatever. Usually there is […]
I have written several posts that use Carol Quigly’s “institutional imperative” as a lens for understanding contemporary events. [1] Mr. Quigly suggests that all human organizations fit into one of two types: instruments and institutions. Instruments are those organizations whose role is limited to the function they were designed to perform.(Think NASA in the 1960s, defined […]
Ashwin Parameswaran has an excellent piece up over at Macroeconomic Resilience on the intersection of economic innovation and technological progress, crony capitalism, complex system dynamics, and unemployment. To quote from the post’s conclusion: The Cause and Impact of Crony Capitalism: the Great Stagnation and the Great Recession Ashwin Parameswaran. Macroeconomic Resilience. 24 November 2010. Due […]
A collection of articles, essays, and blog post of merit – abridged addition this time around. DEMOGRAPHICS The Wheel of History Turns to The Gods Razib Khan. Gene Expression. 10 October 2010. An extremely important survey of global demographic trends over the next forty years.The post focuses on the difference between the birth rates of […]
