The closing days of the First World War gave birth to modern combat. Previous to these developments, advances in firepower made titans of the trenchworks. For four years the trenches were assaulted: for four years storms of steel mowed all offensives down. But as the war reached its end tactics were developed to storm through the gauntlet. Stephen Biddle has called these tactics, and what evolved out of them, “the modern system of battle.” The closing developments of the 1918 made offensives possible again—but the playing field remained tilted towards the defender.
Historians, Slaves of Fashion?
Daniel Gullotta’s Age of Jackson podcast is one of the few I listen to regularly. In 2021 I don’t have a lot of spare bandwidth to keep track of developments in my favorite field of American history, but I do listen to his interviews with new authors in the field to stay somewhat up to date. Listening to a book talk is not the same thing as reading a book, of course, but it is better than slowly having years of labor slip away from memory with disuse.
Welcome to the New Scholar’s Stage
You are looking at the new-and-improved Scholar’s Stage. It has many features the old blogspot lacked. Some of these are available only to my Patreon supporters; others are available to everybody. […]
How I Taught The Iliad to Chinese Teenagers
Several years ago I had the chance to lead two seminars with a group of high-performing Chinese high school seniors. Each seminar had between 20-35 kids; each of these students was a graduating senior enrolled in the international department of a prestigious high school in Beijing. The purpose of these seminars was twofold.
The Magic in Modernity
It is something of a commonplace that the mix of capitalist exchange and technological advance we call ‘modernity’ has stripped the world of its luster. Once we dwelt in fairy glens and dwarven vales, greeting Helios as he made his way across the sky
Further Notes on the New Right
Last month’s essay “The Problem of the New Right” caused a small stir. Formal writeups have been authored by Ross Douthat, Eric Levitz, Jordan Bloom, Lars Schonander, Peter Spilakos, and Aaron Ren. On Twitter there was even more chatter about the essay, much of it critical. I have found the critiques of my piece […]
The Navy’s Knives Must Come Out
A few weeks ago Blake Herzinger kicked up a bit of a storm when he published an essay titled “Give the U.S. Navy the Army’s Money” in Foreign Policy. Herzinger’s argument is not complicated […]
Notes From All Over – April/May 2021
My newest “Notes From All Over“—a collection of the best essays, news items, blog posts, podcast episodes, and scientific articles that I read this month, and recommend you read as well—is now posted to Patreon. This is a recurring monthly feature in the future, though as its publication a week into May suggests, I was […]
The Problem of the New Right
In the world of conservative thought, the intellectual energy lies with the New Right. The New Right can be found in the society of Washington wonks, Silicon Valley dissidents, New York writers, and all manner of GOP politicos.[1] Many served in the Trump administration at one level or another; all are interested in taking the […]
For God and Progress: Notes On Training the Medical Mind
William Osler, teaching at the bedside. Understanding changing perceptions of “great works”— what books are included in a canon at a given moment in history, why certain works make the cut while others fall to the wayside, and tracking down the individuals responsible for these decisions—is a hobby of mine. I have written about it […]