In defense of the Ancient Greeks and Romans

“In the most pure democracies of Greece, many of the executive functions were performed, not by the people themselves, but by officers elected by the people, and REPRESENTING the people in their EXECUTIVE capacity … Prior to the reform of Solon, Athens was governed by nine Archons, annually ELECTED BY THE PEOPLE AT LARGE. The degree of power delegated to them seems to be left in great obscurity. Subsequent to that period, we find an assembly, first of four, and afterwards of six hundred members, annually ELECTED BY THE PEOPLE; and PARTIALLY representing them in their LEGISLATIVE capacity, since they were not only associated with the people in the function of making laws, but had the exclusive right of originating legislative propositions to the people.”

– Alexander Hamilton or James Madison, in the Federalist Papers (Federalist No. 63)

Western culture now seems to be falling out of fashion today. People understandably want to praise the other cultures of the world, and note that they made significant contributions to the arts, sciences, and philosophy. They thus feel that we somehow have to downgrade the contributions of the West. They seem to feel that elevating other cultures requires us to knock Western culture off of its pedestal – a problematic proposition. The legacy of the Ancient Greeks and Romans is one of the casualties of this problematic way of thinking. The Ancient Greeks and Romans may have been “great,” say others, but they were just two cultures among many – and they were no more “great” than any other cultures, says this group. They may have been “special,” this group admits, but all cultures are “special” – depriving this word of any real meaning.

The Pynx in Greece, the meeting place of the people of Athens

So what did the Ancient Greeks and Romans really leave us, you might be wondering? Oh, nothing much: just democracy … and maybe a few other important things. This post will try to explain why the Ancient Greeks and Romans were different. I should note that, to my knowledge, I don’t have a single drop of Greek or Italian blood in me. Thus, to me, this is not about genetics or “privileged bloodlines.” Rather, I see this as being about ideas – with freedom, possibly, being the very greatest of those classical ideas. By creating popular government, the Ancient Greeks and Romans both left us a legacy of free inquiry and pursuit of truth. To me, that is their greatest legacy. It needs to be remembered today, and it needs to be reverently (and thoughtfully) taught today.

The “Forum Romanum,” better known as the Roman Forum

How psychology became a separate discipline

Disclaimer: I am writing here as a philosopher and as a historian, not as a psychologist. That is, I freely admit that I am not an “expert” in psychology, although I do have some minimal exposure to the subject. My intent here is only to show how psychology fits into the broader history of philosophy, by talking about how psychology became a separate discipline in the last two centuries.

Psychology has long been one of the most popular majors in the United States. By some measurements, it is second only to business in its popularity among college students. And it’s easy to see why the subject is so popular. It has a strong human interest element, and helps you to understand all kinds of human behavior. Classes focused on psychological disorders are often so popular that there are waitlists to get into them. Many want to enter the mental health professions, and use their training to help people in the most personal way. And it has long drawn students interested in the scientific side of things, who want to do research – or, at least, to benefit from the prior research of others. But psychology as we know it has only been around since 1879, when Wilhelm Wundt’s Laboratory was founded in Leipzig. And the discipline has many predecessors from back in antiquity, in various attempts to make a distinction between the mind and the body.

Wilhelm Wundt

Great naval conflicts: From the Seven Years’ War to the Napoleonic Wars

Many pirate movies take place in this general time period, and so do many history movies

I grew up on pirate movies like “Treasure Island,” a classic story that takes place in the early eighteenth century. Most modern pirate movies seem to take place in this much-romanticized era of sailing ships and pirates. In this century, we have seen Disney’s fantasy-oriented “Pirates of the Caribbean,” which combines this eighteenth-century historical backdrop with elements of curses and magic. But there have also been more “serious” works of historical fiction, about the naval conflicts of the late eighteenth (and early nineteenth) centuries. For example, there has been the “Horatio Hornblower” franchise (with a TV series starring Ioan Gruffudd), and the Russell Crowe movie “Master and Commander.” (Pity that only one movie was made in that particular franchise, because it was a promising one.) These movies may have some fictional characters in them, along with references to real people like Lord Horatio Nelson. But they may still be “serious” historical movies anyway, in my opinion, since they dramatize the fighting at sea during the Napoleonic Wars.

The wars covered here were all part of a broader struggle between Britain and France

I’m much interested in the naval fighting of the Napoleonic Wars, in part because of the influence of these movies on me personally. But, today, I would like to look at naval fighting in the eighteenth century more generally. The Napoleonic Wars are traditionally dated to the early nineteenth century, and I promise the reader that I will also be giving some serious coverage of that conflict in this post. But, in order to understand the Napoleonic Wars themselves, one has to look at some prior conflicts in the eighteenth century. Most importantly, one has to look at the much broader struggle between Britain and France, and how they duked it out in one maritime conflict after another. Our story begins in 1754, with a frontier conflict in the distant European colonies of North America. Americans today remember it as the “French and Indian War,” but it would soon lead to the broader “Seven Years’ War,” and to many another great naval conflict for the Europeans.

Why you should be concerned about postmodernism

I have long had a fair number of friends who identify as “Marxist” or “socialist.” But I freely admit that relatively few of my friends have described themselves to me as “postmodern” or “postmodernist.” Chances are that your experience is much the same. That is, you probably don’t know too many people who identify themselves as “postmodern” or “postmodernist.” But, if we undertake to define what “postmodernism” is, we may find that we have a fair number of friends who fit this description. We may find that postmodern ideas underlie many other belief systems – from transgender ideology and identity politics, to feminism and critical race theory. We may thus find that a fair number of our friends are influenced, in one way or another, by various postmodern ideas. And, if we take the trouble to examine these ideas carefully, we may see that they cannot stand up to serious intellectual scrutiny. Postmodernism is (and remains) intellectually bankrupt. Thus, it may be worth the time to define this philosophy, then to gauge its prevalence, and finally to take the trouble to debunk it. Perhaps, then, we will be better able to arrive at philosophical truth.

Richard Rorty, postmodern philosopher

Learning the basics of Biblical Hebrew from a book

“Our knowledge of Biblical Hebrew is directly dependent upon Jewish oral tradition and thus on the state of that tradition during and following the various dispersions of the Jews from Palestine. This dependence arises from the peculiarly deficient orthography in which the biblical text was written: it is essentially vowelless, or at most, vocalically ambiguous (see below, §8). The actual pronunciation of the language was handed down orally … The written consonantal text itself achieved a final authoritative form around the end of the first century A. D.”

– The introduction to Thomas O. Lambdin’s “Introduction to Biblical Hebrew” (1971), pages xiii-xiv

For nearly three years, I have read Thomas O. Lambdin’s “Introduction to Biblical Hebrew” – some 284 pages of it. Specifically, I read it from 14 August 2022 through 25 July 2025, at which time I completely finished it – excepting the appendices, index, and the entirety of the glossaries (although I read many parts of these glossaries). I did this completely from a book, and never had the benefit of a classroom, a professor, or a native speaker – or even a recording of one, for that matter! I’ve never heard so much as one hour of audio of the language, even from non-native speakers, and this made it somewhat daunting at times. It may have increased the difficulty level in at least some ways, and I don’t recommend it to others unless other options are not available (as they were not for me).

Why I believe that critical race theory is unscientific

Scientific theories must be testable. But if both results are believed to “prove” one right …

Suppose I told you that something really crazy happened last night. Specifically, at midnight last night, everything in the universe “shrank to one-half its original dimensions.” If you were to get a yardstick, you’d see that the size of certain nearby objects has changed in the manner claimed. If so, then that would prove me right. But, if the yardstick appeared to show that the size was the same as before, then it’s because the yardstick also “shrank” as well. Thus, my hypothesis has still not been disproved – in fact, it gets “proved” either way! If you test something scientifically, then this has to be “valid” science, after all. To get a “valid” scientific hypothesis, all you have to do is to test that hypothesis, right? I mean, that’s “all” that’s required for something to be scientific.

… then it’s still not science, because there has to be some possible result that could prove it wrong

The problem with this argument is that testability alone is not sufficient. The hypothesis also has to be falsifiable. That is, you have to be able to conceive of a scenario where your hypothesis could be proven false – that is, where it could be “falsified.” If you believe that either of two opposite results would “prove” your own point of view, then you’re still not doing science. Your hypothesis may still be testable, but the test is unscientific, because its advocates cannot conceive of a result that disproves the hypothesis by their own standards. If you’re trying to determine which of two movies is “inherently better,” this kind of thing doesn’t have to be scientific. Subjective claims like this are allowed to be unscientific – not to be confused with being anti-scientific, which means something else. The problems come when theories that are not scientific are claiming to be such, like the earlier claim about the universe shrinking. This is a different kind of claim from one movie being “inherently better” than the other. The shrinking-universe hypothesis claims to be objective, and thus crosses the line into the territory of pseudoscience. The shrinking-universe hypothesis is much more deserving of censure than those theories that never claimed to be “scientific” in the first place. When you claim to be “scientific,” you need to be able to back up this claim.

The “French Revolutionary Wars”: A great European cataclysm

“Do you hear in the fields

The howling of those fearsome soldiers?

They are coming into your midst

To slit the throats of your sons and consorts.

To arms, citizens!

Form up your battalions!

Let’s march, let’s march!

May impure blood soak our fields’ furrows!”

– English translation of “La Marseillaise” (1792), originally written in French during the French Revolution – now used as the national anthem of France

The French Revolution sucked much of Europe into a decade of bitter warfare

In 1789, a French mob stormed the Bastille on the 14th of July. This is the most famous date of the French Revolution, with its anniversary today celebrated in France as “Bastille Day.” This is actually the national holiday of France today, much as “Independence Day” is the national holiday of the United States. But there’s more to the story than this domestic revolution, although that is a critically important part of it. The French Revolution also sucked much of Europe into a decade of bitter warfare. The later years of the French Revolution were thus set against the backdrop of warfare. That is, there was an overlap between the later “French Revolution” and the early “French Revolutionary Wars.” This post will cover the often-forgotten conflicts that were associated with the French Revolution. I have saved my coverage of the Napoleonic Wars for another post, even though these two topics are intimately connected. Thus, I will instead be focusing here on the “French Revolutionary Wars,” which lasted for ten years in all. In so many ways, they were a great European cataclysm.

Storming of the Bastille, 1789

Gerald Ford: Owing his presidency to the Twenty-Fifth Amendment

“In case of the removal of the President from office or of his death or resignation, the Vice President shall become President.

Whenever there is a vacancy in the office of the Vice President, the President shall nominate a Vice President who shall take the office upon confirmation by a majority vote of both houses of Congress.”

– Twenty-Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution (ratified 1967), Sections 1 and 2

In 1974, Richard Nixon became the first president in American history to resign from office. He said that “Therefore, I shall resign the Presidency effective at noon tomorrow. Vice President Ford will be sworn in as President at that hour in this office.” (Source: Speech given in the Oval Office, 8 August 1974) This means that Gerald Ford is the only person to become president following a resignation. He was also the first (and, so, far, the only) person to become president, via any portion of the Twenty-Fifth Amendment. In his case, it was two portions. And, as often noted, he was also the first (and, so far, the only) person who was never elected as either president or vice president, but who still became president anyway. He served out the remainder of Richard Nixon’s last term, and succeeded in getting his party’s nomination in 1976. But he was still defeated that year, and was never elected to a presidential term of his own.

Gerald Ford

In defense of the American Founding Fathers

“And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.”

– The United States Declaration of Independence (July 4th, 1776)

In recent decades, our Founding Fathers have been the target of some bitter revisionist attacks. For example, many cannot forgive them for being slaveholders. Many cannot forgive them for infringing on Native American lands, or their “failure” to give women the right to vote – as though that would have been possible in the eighteenth century (which it clearly wasn’t). Racism, sexism, and any number of other modern charges are leveled at the Founding Fathers. In short, the Founding Fathers are judged by various modern standards – which is always a mistake. Things that today are an accomplished fact were, in their own time, completely unattainable. The pace of progress is usually slow, and some problems can only be fixed after several generations have passed. Thus, in the larger perspective of history, the progress in the Founding Fathers’ time was actually astonishingly fast, and more than anyone in that time would have dreamt possible. It is true that our Founding Fathers had some very real flaws, but the revisionist arguments about them seem to have even greater flaws. Few of those who make these arguments have ever studied the Founding Fathers’ actual ideas in any sort of depth. Thus, an examination of the Founding Fathers’ ideas would seem appropriate here, to show that their ideas have actually aged remarkably well. Their ideas can withstand the most vigorous scrutiny, and remain quite relevant … all these years later.

George Mason, one of our lesser-known Founding Fathers

In defense of the United States of America

“Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant, to step the ocean, and crush us at a blow? Never! All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest; with a Bonaparte for a commander, could not by force, take a drink from the Ohio, or make a track on the Blue Ridge, in a trial of a thousand years.”

– Abraham Lincoln, in his “Address before the Young Men’s Lyceum of Springfield” (27 January 1838)

In 1776, the United States rightly declares that “all men are created equal”

On a warm summer day in 1776, the Continental Congress declared: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” (Source: Declaration of Independence, 1776) It has often been noted that the man who wrote these words was a Virginia slaveholder named Thomas Jefferson. Clearly, the promise of equality had not yet been realized when he wrote these words, even in his own household. There was much to do in the coming decades to give these words a fuller meaning. But people have rightly looked to these words as a “promised beginning.” We made a promise that, one day, all men (and also women) in this country would see legal recognition of their equality. Some interpret this to mean that all of us must have equal wealth, or equal income, or equal status of some other kind. If so, then the promised equality could never be realized, because there will always be people who succeed, and there will always be others who desperately struggle to make ends meet. No utopian scheme ever proposed for ending poverty has ever yet been brought to pass, despite fervent efforts to implement such schemes. Whether or not these schemes bring any actual progress … may be a better topic for another post. But the Founding Fathers did create a “land of the free, [and] home of the brave.” They created a land of opportunity, where one could rise through industry and honest toil. And they created equality of opportunity, arguably the kind of equality that was meant to be enshrined in the Declaration of Independence.

John Trumbull’s “Declaration of Independence”

Forgotten battlegrounds of World War One: The Balkans and Eastern Europe

A war that killed at least 15 million people began with two quick gunshots in the Balkans. The fighting of World War One began in the Balkans, and eventually saw some of its greatest bloodshed in this same region. Popular historians often talk about the assassination at Sarajevo, because it sucked in many of the other nations of the world – including, eventually, the United States. But subsequent events in the Balkans tend to be unknown among the general public, even lesser-known than the complex origins of the war that one can find there. Thus, this may be a good time to examine the events of the Balkans and Eastern Europe, and how they engulfed much of the rest of the world when those two fateful gunshots were fired there.

Sarajevo citizens reading a poster with the proclamation of the Austrian annexation in 1908

A review of “The Salem Witch Trials” (History Channel)

“Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.”

– The Hebrew Bible, “The Second Book of Moses Called Exodus,” Chapter 22, Verse 18 (as translated by the King James Version of the Bible)

They’re among the most infamous trials in American history. In both 1692 and 1693, more than 200 people were prosecuted in the Salem witch trials. Thirty of them were convicted, nineteen of whom were executed by hanging. One other man was tortured to death when he refused to enter a plea. At least five others died by disease in the jails. But how could this horrible event have happened? What does it tell us about human nature? And what parallels, if any, might these witch-hunts have with today? These are the questions (admittedly somewhat loaded questions) that this post shall attempt to answer.

Why World War II continues to fascinate so many

World War II has been depicted in countless books, documentaries, and Hollywood movies. Some of these movies are basically action films of one sort or another. That is, they dramatize the contributions of those who fought for the various Allied nations. These films can take place on submarines and other warships, in bombers or fighter planes, or in various (often exotic) ground locations all over the world. Other films tell the stories of those who lived under Nazi or Japanese rule, with difficult decisions dropped on these unluckily-placed people. For example, some of them chose to escape, some of them chose to spy for the Allies, and others of them chose to collaborate with the Axis occupations of their own countries (sadly enough). Other films depict parts of the Holocaust, dramatizing the countless victims of the genocide. Other films (such as “Tora! Tora! Tora!”) ask big questions, like how we got involved in the war. I have even heard of a film about the efforts to prevent the Nazis from getting the atomic bomb. (More about that here.) Other films depict World War II code-crackers or spies, prisoners of war in Axis-controlled prison camps, or even the postwar Nuremberg trials. There are biographies of major leaders – such as FDR, Churchill, Patton, or Eisenhower. And there are countless stories about ordinary people doing extraordinary things. Why is this? What is it about World War II that continues to fascinate people, all of these decades after it tore the world apart – and then altered the very map of the world itself?

Firefighters tackling a blaze amongst ruined buildings after an air raid – London, 1941

Naval air power: Aircraft carrier tactics in the Pacific War

In Italy, the distant Battle of Taranto proved the effectiveness of aircraft carriers

In November 1940, a British aircraft carrier launched an aerial attack against the forces of Fascist Italy. At the Italian port of Taranto, 21 Fairey Swordfish biplanes wreaked havoc on Mussolini’s fleet. These planes were “torpedo bombers,” meaning that they were designed to drop torpedoes at a point in the water near to an enemy ship. The torpedoes were then supposed to plunge towards their targets, and hit it beneath the waves. By inflicting a hole on the submerged part of the enemy ship, they would allow water to pour in, and (if all went well) send the target sinking to the bottom of the ocean. People were understandably skeptical about whether these torpedoes would work in the shallow waters of Taranto harbor. They were worried that the torpedoes would instead plunge into the muddy bottom of the harbor itself. But, at the cost of two British aircraft, the British had damaged one heavy cruiser, two destroyers, and two enemy fighters. Most importantly, they had actually disabled three Italian battleships, which were then supposed to be the most formidable ships afloat. At Taranto, Mussolini’s Italians had lost 59 killed and 600 wounded, while the British had lost only 2 killed and 2 captured. The Battle of Taranto was powerful evidence about the effectiveness of the latest aircraft carriers, and their ability to sink these supposedly “invincible” battleships.

Aftermath of the Battle of Taranto, showing a beached Italian battleship – Italy, 1940

A review of Aristotle’s “Nicomachean Ethics”

“The best writings of antiquity upon government those I mean of Aristotle, Zeno and Cicero are lost. We have human nature, society, and universal history to observe and study, and from these we may draw, all the real principles which ought to be regarded.”

– John Adams, in a letter to Samuel Adams (18 October 1790)

Surprisingly, I actually found it easier to read Aristotle (in the original Greek, at least) than Plato

I have read Aristotle’s “Nicomachean Ethics” in the original Ancient Greek. Specifically, I read the work from February 2023 to May 2025. (More about why I learned Ancient Greek here, and more about how exactly I learned the language here.) I was surprised by how much I enjoyed the work. It was one of the most interesting works that I’ve ever had the privilege to read. Before undertaking this work, I had been reading some works by Plato instead, including Plato’s lengthy work “Republic.” But I had been somewhat worried about undertaking to read Aristotle, because of a quote from the historian Will Durant. Specifically, Will Durant once quipped that “We must not expect of Aristotle such literary brilliance as floods the pages of the dramatist-philosopher Plato. Instead of giving us great literature, in which philosophy is embodied (and obscured) in myth and imagery, Aristotle gives us science, technical, abstract, concentrated; if we go to him for entertainment we shall sue for the return of our money.” (See the same quotation at the beginning of this blog post for the relevant citation.) After hearing this quote, I was figuring that Aristotle would thus be harder for me to read than Plato. But my reaction was actually the opposite. That is, I actually found Aristotle easier to read (in the original, at least) than Plato.

Aristotle

Postmodernists seem to misunderstand the natural sciences

“Rather, they cling to the dogma imposed by the long post-Enlightenment hegemony over the Western intellectual outlook, which can be summarized briefly as follows: that there exists an external world, whose properties are independent of any individual human being and indeed of humanity as a whole; that these properties are encoded in ‘eternal’ physical laws; and that human beings can obtain reliable, albeit imperfect and tentative, knowledge of these laws by hewing to the ‘objective’ procedures and epistemological strictures prescribed by the (so-called) scientific method.”

– Alan Sokal’s “Transgressing the Boundaries: Towards a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity” (1996) – later revealed by the author to be a hoax, which he used to demonstrate how academic journals that lack peer review can allow complete nonsense like this to slip by unnoticed

Disclosure: I lack training in the natural sciences (but, then, so do most postmodernists)

Postmodern ideas have now gained a foothold in the humanities and social sciences. For example, these views seem to be particularly popular among professors of literature and philosophy. Many of them argue that all truth is both relative and subjective – a doctrine known as “relativism.” Some of them have even argued that morality is relative, to either the individual or the broader culture – a better subject for two other posts. (To be released later on.) Postmodernists are also skeptical of what they call “meta-narratives,” or grand narratives about the larger world. And, in the context of the natural sciences, they believe that the natural sciences support their relativist view of things. They believe that mathematics and physics both deny the possibility of a true knowledge of nature. They cite a number of math and science ideas (four in particular) to support these strange interpretations. But it seems that they have grossly misunderstood these ideas, which do not actually make the claims that the postmodernists attribute to them. Thus, it might be helpful to set the record straight, and show what the sciences actually say about relative truth and the theory of knowledge. I should acknowledge that, like my current targets, I admittedly lack training in the natural sciences or higher mathematics myself. I freely admit this up-front. But, then, most of my postmodern targets seem to lack training in these subjects, too – virtually all of them, it seems. Thus, any criticisms on this score would have to go both ways, if true fairness is to be observed.

Jean Baudrillard, postmodern philosopher and sociologist

The Seven Years’ War was a massive worldwide conflict

“The free exercise of the roman religion [in Canada] is granted, likewise safe guards to all religious persons, as well as to the Bishop, who shall be at liberty to come and express, freely and with decency, the functions of his office, whenever he shall think proper, until the possession of Canada shall have been decided between their Britannic and most Christian [French] Majesties.”

– Articles of Capitulation of Quebec (18 September 1759), Number 6 – the document that changed Canada from a French colony into a British colony

The Seven Years’ War was a true world war, fought on five different continents

When we think of the eighteenth century, we usually think of the great revolutions in America and France, which were in the latter half of that century. And these revolutions obviously were quite important. But these revolutions were an outgrowth of previous conflicts, including (arguably) the Seven Years’ War. The Seven Years’ War was a true world war, to a degree that the later Napoleonic Wars were not. Specifically, the Seven Years’ War would eventually be fought on five different continents. The conflict would have profound consequences for the fate of empires, and even for the map of the world. There has been at least one major documentary about the “French and Indian War,” a related war that helped to spark the larger “Seven Years’ War.” But no documentary overview of the Seven Years’ War has yet been attempted. Thus, it seems to remain mostly forgotten today. Therefore, I would like to attempt an overview of this conflict, and of the many sub-conflicts that were a part of it. That is, I will try to show how the Seven Years’ War rocked the eighteenth-century world, and how it was fought from one end of this globe to the other.

Naval battle of Quiberon Bay, 1759 – Off the coast of Brittany, France

A review of “Real Estate and Collectibles” (audiobook)

So I was recently listening to some additional presentations from an audio series about investment. This particular installment was called “Real Estate and Collectibles.” I found out that it was actually two presentations: one about “The Collectors,” and one about “The Real Estate Tycoons.” Both were as interesting as I expected them to be, and brought back fond memories of my days as a business major.

A review of Michael Wood’s “Art of the Western World”

In 1969, the BBC released a classic television series called “Civilisation” (spelled in the British way). This prior series was presented by the art historian Kenneth Clark, and also details the “art of the Western world.” I am a major fan of the Kenneth Clark series, as I describe here. But it is said that each generation writes its own history. Thus, in 1989, the BBC also engaged Michael Wood to make the series “Art of the Western World.” This was some twenty years after the making of the original “Civilisation.” Michael Wood was trained as a historian, and he is an excellent filmmaker and storyteller. But he seems to have no background in art history, and probably felt his lack of knowledge in this area when he made this film. Thus, in every episode, he sometimes delegated the presenting job to other people, whose expertise he presumably would have admired. This is a different technique from merely interviewing scholars, although he also did some of that as well (particularly in his last episode). Rather, he seems to have allowed his chosen scholars a great degree of creative control over certain segments of the film. He allowed them to say basically whatever they want, and narrate their segments as they see fit. He also gave them some creative control over what images were to be shown on screen during their presentations. I don’t think I’ve ever seen another documentary film that uses this distinctive technique. This allows him to compensate somewhat for his own lack of formal background in art history. That is, he sticks to what he knows, and Michael Wood knows quite a lot.

U-boats in the Great War: The other “Battle of the Atlantic”

German U-boats were once the terror of the high seas, and this was true during both world wars. In the First World War, this campaign had much to do with the eventual American entry into the war. But we tend to associate these campaigns with the Second World War, which will probably continue to enjoy more glory than the first one ever did. And, in truth, the Battle of the Atlantic really was quite important. We thus tend to associate the phrase “Battle of the Atlantic” with World War Two, and describe its World War One equivalent simply as the “Atlantic U-boat campaign.” (When using the generic phrase “U-boat campaign,” though, this can also include the lesser-known “Mediterranean U-boat campaign.”) But in a broader sense, the First World War version was also a “Battle of the Atlantic,” and was vitally important in its own right. It was the lifeline of Allied Europe during the Great War, and (as mentioned earlier) played a big role in getting America to enter the war. This post will describe the U-boat front of the Great War, with a particular focus on the changing role of the Americans in this campaign. But I assure readers from other countries that I will tie in our own situation to that of our many allies, since it affected every other nation that participated in these campaigns – as readers may soon see, if they indeed decide to read this post.

German U-boats at Kiel (before the war started), 1914

A review of “Søren Kierkegaard” (audiobook)

He was one of the greatest Christian philosophers of all time. But, in a particular way, he was one of the greatest philosophers of the nineteenth-century “Age of Romanticism.” His full name was Søren Aabye Kierkegaard, and he was born in Copenhagen, Denmark. He may be the most notable philosopher ever to write in the Danish language, since relatively few come from this small country. But his works have since been translated into many other languages (including English), and they continue to be read in certain circles today.

Struggle over the Marxist heritage: The battle for the ivory tower

Karl Marx attacked other socialist and communist schools in “The Communist Manifesto”

The debate over the Marxist heritage is at least as old as Marxism itself. In the nineteenth century, for example, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels published a brief work called “The Communist Manifesto.” This remains one of the most influential tracts ever written on economic theory. In that same century, they also published a three-volume work called “Das Kapital.” Some would argue that this is the most talked-about book in the social sciences – or, at least, the work that’s most frequently cited in academic journals of the social sciences. These nineteenth-century works are thus among the most influential books in human history. But Karl Marx debated with others in the budding socialist and communist movements, even attacking many of them in “The Communist Manifesto.” For example, “The Communist Manifesto” contains specific attacks on “reactionary socialism” – including “feudal socialism,” “petty-bourgeois socialism,” and “German, or ‘true,’ socialism” (as it was then called). He also attacks “conservative, or bourgeois, socialism,” although he has more mixed feelings about “critical-utopian socialism and communism” – as he states in the work itself. (Source: Chapter III, Section 3) Thus, the debate over socialism and communism goes back at least as far as the nineteenth century. Nonetheless, it still continues in full force today. Thus, this post will give a brief overview of the debates within the Marxist community, in the years since Marx’s death at age 64. I will have to skip over the original words of Marx himself, since I cover them elsewhere. Therefore, this will include a special focus on both the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, and the developments in Marxist thinking since the twentieth-century Russian Revolution.

Karl Kautsky

A review of Michael Wood’s “The Great British Story: A People’s History”

In America, Ken Burns once said something interesting about American history. That is, he said that the history of the United States is usually told as “a series of presidential administrations punctuated by wars.” You could probably say something similar about the history of our mother country. Schoolchildren in the British Empire were once required to memorize the chronological order of the kings and queens of England. I suppose that there might have been some value in having schoolchildren memorize this stuff. As someone who studies the laws of England, I can tell you that the numerical citation of a Parliamentary law still makes reference to whichever monarch was in power at the time of its passage. Nonetheless, there’s still something to be said for the history of ordinary people as well – and I should note that some of those “ordinary” British people were my own ancestors! My mom has a real talent for family history, and so I’ve seen the names of some of my British ancestors from centuries ago. I’ve even done church work for some of them. (More about that here.) They lived through invasions, plagues, famines, and wars – and passed on their genes well enough to give me the opportunity of writing this post. Thus, this is a personal story for me, since only a few of my British ancestors were “powerful monarchs.” Most of them were ordinary peasants, like the people dramatized in the various episodes of this series.

James Monroe: Famous for the Monroe Doctrine

In 1823, President James Monroe gave one of his annual addresses to Congress on December 2nd. In this address, he announced that “the American continents, by the free and independent condition which they have assumed and maintain, are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonization by any European powers” (Source: Text of the Monroe Doctrine). This was the famous “Monroe Doctrine,” the most iconic aspect of his administration. Some have argued that it had more to do with Monroe’s Secretary of State, John Quincy Adams – who would later succeed Mr. Monroe as president. But, either way, it is clear that Mr. Monroe approved it – which is why the doctrine still (rightly) bears his name. Many have argued that James Monroe was one of our Founding Fathers, and that he was thus “the last Founding Father president.” His presidency is today remembered by history as the “Era of Good Feelings.” (More about that later.) But who was this man? Why was he so important? And where exactly did he come from? These are the questions that this post will attempt to answer.

James Monroe

James Buchanan: One of the worst presidents in American history

When Abraham Lincoln was elected president in 1860, James Buchanan remained in office until March 4th of 1861. (The Twentieth Amendment, which later changed the regular inauguration date to January 20th, had not yet been passed.) Therefore, Southern states started seceding from the Union while James Buchanan was still in the White House. By the time that he left office, a full seven of them had seceded. But James Buchanan did nothing to stop them. The South was furious because Buchanan wouldn’t yield to their demands. And the North was also furious, because Buchanan wouldn’t stop Southern secession. Mr. Buchanan did practically nothing during this critical period. Thus, it would fall to his successor, Abraham Lincoln, to end the Southern attempts at secession. The seeds of the Civil War were being sown (at least in part) during James Buchanan’s administration. This is why Buchanan is typically ranked among the worst presidents in American history. But more about that aspect of the story later. For now, let me try to answer a relatively simple question: Where exactly did James Buchanan come from?

James Buchanan