Shame and War

USGS topographical map. “Japan, Korea, and Northeast China.” 2006. Image Source: koryostudies.com. What leads men and states to the path of war? For centuries thinkers and strategists of the Western tradition have turned to Thucydides and his history to find answers to this question. The great historian speaks of Athenian envoys rising up in hostile […]

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The United States Doesn’t Know What to Do With the East China Sea

The famous “nine-dash line” that marks China’s territorial claims in the South China Sea Source: “Q&A: South China Sea Disputes.” BBC News. 15 May 2013. Earlier this afternoon The House Committee on Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific held a hearing devoted entitled “America’s Future in Asia: From Rebalancing to Managing Sovereignty Disputes.” […]

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Notes From All Over (3/02/2014): Ghosts, Empire, and Tribal Honor

A collection of articles, essays, and blog post of merit. TOP BILLING “‘The standard of living in ancient societies: a comparison between the Han Empire, the Roman Empire, and Babylonia“ Bas van Leeuwen, Reinhard Pirgruber, and Jieli van Leeuwen-Li. Working Papers 50, Utrecht University, Centre for Global Economic History. The global and long-term development of […]

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Asian Great Power Politics: Spring 2013

Image Credit: Washington Post,  Interesting things happen in Asia. Over the last few months a lot of interesting things have happened. Yet as 2013 rolls forward I find myself increasingly dissatisfied with the standard explanations  American commentators rely on to explain Asia’s great power politicking. This post presents a few themes neglected by many analysts […]

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Notes From All Over (14/4/2013) – Digital Feudalism, Macrohistory, and Energy

A collection of articles, essays, and blog post of merit. This collection is a large one.  TOP BILLING Our Internet Surveillance StateBruce Schneier. Schneier on Security. 25 March 2013. The Internet is a surveillance state. Whether we admit it to ourselves or not, and whether we like it or not, we’re being tracked all the […]

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West and East and How We Think

What impact does culture have on cognition? Psychologist Richard Nisbett has conducted dozens of studies to find out the answer to this question. Presented in The Geography of Thought: How Asians and Westerners Think Differently, the results of his study are fascinating – and their implications far reaching. “Perception: How Germans and Chinese See Each Other” from […]

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I Thought I Had Something Insightful to Say About the Yen Intervention….

…but then I found my way to the Financial Times. Within a day of the story breaking they have published ten quality articles on the subject and collected them all into one “FT in Depth” special feature. Consider me impressed. I had planned on writing a post concerning the intervention’s relationship to Japan’s internal politics […]

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Notes From All Over 23/05/2009

Notes From All Over: A collection of recently published articles, essays, reports, or blog posts of merit. Life shall require my attention for the nest week, so please do not expect much in the way of new posts. In order to meet my readership’s desire for important world news updates and intelligent analysis, I have […]

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