The theories of John Boyd are an interesting example of a general historical principle: medium changes message. The physical medium used to communicate information changes the way information is organized and understood. For example, historians often credit the short, clipped and rhyming phrases of texts like Sunzi’s Art of War, The Analects or the Dao […]
Major religions in the Middle EastImage Source: Columbia University’s Gulf 2000 Project I am not a specialist in arms control or nuclear technology. I must rely on the judgement of others with relevant expertise to assess the viability of the new agreement with Iran. This makes things difficult, for the opinions of experts I trust […]
Peter Turchin is one of the leading minds behind cliodynamics, an effort to make the study of history a fully scientific discipline with the same sort of theoretical and mathematical rigor that under-girds modern scholarship in disciplines like ecology or evolutionary biology. In a 2008 essay written for Nature he justified this project in the […]
A Serbian Gypsy Family at Ellis Island. “Gitanos Augustus” by Augustus Sherman (1917), displayed at Statue of Liberty National Park. Image Credit: Wikimedia. What history should an educated American be expected to know?The most recent issue of Democracy Journal includes a long essay by Eric Liu on “cultural literacy,” a term coined by E.D. Hersh […]
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) Americans are rarely disinterested observers when watching elections held in foreign climes. The further outside the Western world Americans roam the […]
I read with interest Ta-Nehisi Coates’ recent historical essay for The Atlantic, “What This Cruel War Was Over.” The article is worth reading. It consists mostly of quotations pulled from Southerner declarations, debates, and editorials from the Civil War and late antebellum eras, all on the theme of slavery and the desperate need to preserve […]
“The King’s library at Buckingham House” from The History of Royal Residences, by William Henry Pines (1819), plate No. 48 Image Source: Wikimedia When the moment of decision arrives the time for study and reflection has ended. Decisions made under pressure often rely on heuristics, assumptions, and interpretive frames formed long before crisis arrives. Some of […]
“Shanghai Celebrates the New Republic,” from Dongfang Magazine, vol 8, no. 12 (1911) Image Source: Wikimedia Political scientist Jay Ulfelder has an interesting piece up at Dart Throwing Chimp that questions the importance of ‘legitimacy,’ a concept social scientists have long used to explain the rise and fall of governments and political regimes. This is […]
Image Credit: Wikimedia It is rare for me to comment at length on contemporary American pop-culture here at the Stage, where I usually reserve myself to discussions of cultural trends found deep in the past or far from American shores. But occasionally I will read a piece exciting or infuriating enough to drag me out […]
The Fallen of World War II from Neil Halloran on Vimeo (27 May 2015). This video is a bit less than 20 minutes long. It has been making the rounds on Facebook and other social network sites, so it is possible you have seen it already. If you have not, you should. It is incredible. […]