Monday, September 29, 2025

A review of Ric Burns’ “New York: A Documentary History”

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“Whereupon the Citty and Fort Amsterdam and Province of the New Netherlands were surrendered under His Most Exct. Mat’s. Obedience, made and...
Monday, September 22, 2025

USA spies: From the American Revolution to the Civil War

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“Therefore no one in the armed forces is treated as familiarly as are spies , no one is given rewards as rich as those given to spies , and ...
Friday, September 19, 2025

Piracy played a role, early in the “Second” Hundred Years’ War

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“When I was a boy, there was but one permanent ambition among my comrades in our village [Hannibal, Missouri] on the west bank of the Missis...
Wednesday, September 17, 2025

My deep and abiding love of the Constitution

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“The body politic is formed by a voluntary association of individuals: it is a social compact , by which the whole people covenants with eac...
Monday, September 1, 2025

The Latin American wars of independence were followed by … more wars?

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The Napoleonic Wars sparked some  serious wars of independence  throughout  Latin America . One portion of  Spanish America  after another ...
Sunday, August 24, 2025

In defense of the Ancient Greeks and Romans

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“In the most pure democracies of Greece , many of the executive functions were performed, not by the people themselves, but by officers elec...
Saturday, August 16, 2025

How psychology became a separate discipline

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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 “expe...