Image source. Now that the affair in Doklam has come to a close, analysts of various stripes are trying to make sense of what happened and what lessons can be learned from the episode. One of the smartest of these write ups was written by Oriana Skylar Mastro and Arzan Tarapore for War on the […]
Last week’s posting (“Everything is Worse in China”) caught the attention of Rod Dreher, who reblogged it with comments over at the American Conservative. I sent him an e-mail in response introducing a few Chinese thinkers who might be relevant to the traditionalist cause, especially in its Benedict Option version. As he has published the […]
One of the benefits of living in China is a certain sense of perspective. China exists outside of the Anglophone culture wars. It would not be accurate to say the Chinese don’t have an opinion or even a stake in American cultural crusades. They do. But our fights are not their fights, and even when […]
There once lived in a far country a people of gentle nature and perceptive understanding. They were led by a man of great vision. At great cost he decided to dedicate his life to preserving this people’s way of life. He saw in them a beauty and virtue he could find nowhere else. In a […]
One quick announcement for the readership: posting will probably be light over the next three weeks, as I will be spending that time away from Beijing, instead criss-crossing my way across America. I will certainly spend at least a week in Utah, and a week in DC, and possibly a bit of time in Texas […]
A map of “Khmer Krom,” territory once dominated by Khmer speakers before it was conquered by Vietnam in the 18th and 19th centuries. Image Source: Douc Sokha, “βαα ααααβααααααααααβααΆβααααΎαβα―αααΆαβααΆαβα€α α α βαααααβ ααΆααααβααΉαβααΆαβααΆααβααΉαααΈβααααα»ααΆβαααααβα²ααβαααααΆαββ“, Vod Hot News (15 February 2015) Folks, I have a piece up at Foreign Policy on two of my favorite topics–Cambodian politics and China’s international relations. Most analysts see […]
Image Source New Year’s Day has come and gone, meaning that it is time, per established tradition, to report the full list of books that I read over the last year. This tradition is now four years old, but I am still surprised with its popularity. These posts have not generated the highest hit counts […]
Image source. Now that the heat of the election season has passed, it is possible to examine the heat itself. The election’s aftermath was a grand spectacle. Some convulsed in desperation and despair. Others surrendered to frenzied, twitter-fueled fits of rapture. In the midst of all this noise, a pattern arose. In simplest terms: there is a […]
A supposed bust of Alcibiades. Image source. I spent the later part of my teenage years in the forbidding climes of southeastern Minnesota. In those days Iβd often hear a joke that I sometimes still repeat: βIn Minnesota we have four seasons: near-winter, winter, still-winter,… and road construction.β Minnesotaβs northern reaches are pockmarked with lakes […]
This post was originally published as part of the Thucydides Roundtable project over at Zenpundit. I encourage you to read all of the posts in the roundtable. The most famous episode in Thucydidesβ History is found in its fifth book. Known as the βMelian Dialogue,β it is one of the best known statements of what […]