Actually, Rousseau did NOT influence the Founding Fathers (sorry Wikipedia)

Wikipedia argues that Rousseau influenced the Founding Fathers …

I have often heard people claim that Rousseau “influenced” the Founding Fathers. One of my high school history teachers said this, and so have some websites. Most prominently, Wikipedia is among those who claim this. But absolutely none of these sources ever offered any convincing evidence that this is actually the case. Moreover, most of the Founding Father quotes about Rousseau are negative, casting doubt upon the idea that he “influenced” them to any significant degree (or at all, for that matter).

Statue of Rousseau on the Île Rousseau, Geneva

A review of Neil Oliver’s “Vikings: The Real Warriors” (BBC)

In the year 793, the Vikings attacked a monastery on the English island of Lindisfarne. It was the beginning of the Viking invasion of England – or, at least, the first Viking invasion. Thus, many historians mark this raid as the beginning of the “Viking Age.” It was then that they first became important players on the world stage. But who were the Vikings? Where did they come from? Why did they act as they did? Were they just a kind of “medieval terrorist,” or is there more to the story than that? And why, after all that they accomplished, did they suddenly disappear from the pages of history?

A review of “Avicenna and Medieval Muslim Philosophy” (audiobook)

During the Middle Ages, the Muslim world helped to keep Greek philosophy alive. In the wake of the Roman Empire’s fall in the fifth century, the West was rapidly forgetting Greek learning. In particular, the works of Aristotle were temporarily lost in the West. But in the Middle East, they were kept alive in Arabic translation, long before the West would rediscover their original Greek during the Renaissance.

If my life were a Twilight Zone episode …

“There is a Facebook dimension, beyond that which is known to man. It is a dimension as vast as cyberspace and as time-wasting as infinity. It is the middle ground between momentous and mundane, between profundity and shallowness, and it lies between the pit of man’s boredom and the summit of his humor. This is the dimension of utter nonsense. It is an area which we call … the Twilight Zone.”