ARTICLES ARCHIVE

 

You can find a complete listing of all the articles on this site here. They are listed in reverse chronological order, and are all clickable links. Twenty-five articles are displayed per page, with the publication date included. To find older articles, click on the page numbers at the bottom.

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  • The Seven Sleepers

    We all desire to retain a sense of connection to the past.  It is part of human nature.  Too sudden a break with tradition can produce something very much like insanity; in individuals we call this a broken mind, and in nations we call it revolution.  And both of these reactions are destructive.  And at…

  • Five Lessons Drawn From Recent Emails (Podcast)

    Out of some recent emails, I’ve extracted five lessons that are worth remembering.  

  • Sunday Film Roundup (9/25/2016)

    I’ve decided to bring back the film review posts due to popular demand.  So here are a few movies I’ve seen recently, with my opinions of them.  I’ve said it before, and will say it again:  movies can open up windows of creativity for you.  If you see the right ones, they can help you…

  • The First Rule Of Soviet Military Doctrine: Only The Offensive Brings Victory

    I am an admirer of the author Victor Suvorov.  I wish I could meet and speak with him.  He served for thirty years as an officer in the Soviet Army before defecting to the West in the 1980s.  In his book Inside The Soviet Army, he tells the following anecdote:

  • Murder On The High Seas: The Weird Case Of Ansell Nickerson

    Justice, as we all know, does not always win out in the end.  Sometimes the wicked escape unpunished for their crimes, for a variety of reasons.  This seems to have been what happened with one strange murder case I read about recently.  It is notable for the involvement of the future president John Adams in…

  • The Greatness Of Alp Arslan

    The first of the Seljuk sultans was Togrul Beg.  Of him Edward Gibbon said, “It would be superfluous to praise the valour of a Turk; and the ambition of Togrul was equal to his valour.”  This is a supreme compliment, and entirely true.  By the time of his death in 1063 he had firmly laid…

  • Justice Should Remain Blind

    One of the greatest of the medieval Turkish princes was Mahmud of Ghazni (محمود غزنوی) or Mahmud Ghaznawi.  He lived from about 971 to 1030.  During this time his forces conquered large parts of what is now Iran, Afghanistan, and northern India.  It was apparently for him that the title of sultan was first invented.

  • How To Avoid Burnout (Along With A Hidden Question) (Podcast)

    The question here is: “How do I avoid burnout?” But–as is often the case–I sense a hidden question lurking below the surface here that deals with isolation and loneliness. We discuss some answers.

  • The Soviet Union’s Philosophy Of Weapons Design

    The Soviet Union is no more, as everyone knows.  Its political system proved to be unsuccessful; it was incapable of adapting to the challenges of history.

  • Man Is Wolf To Man: Surviving The Gulag (Review)

    Janusz Bardach’s Man Is Wolf To Man:  Surviving The Gulag ranks among the best prison-camp memoirs of the Second World War era.  As an epic of suffering and survival, it makes an excellent companion to Siegfried Knappe’s Soldat:  Reflections Of A German Soldier, 1936-1949, another dark chronicle of a dark era.

  • Why You Shouldn’t “Stay In Your Lane” (Podcast)

    So-called “experts” and pundits will always try to pigeon-hole you.  They will try to categorize you as they see fit, in order to make themselves feel good.  If you are pursuing your passions or mission, you’ll notice people trying to “put you in your place.”  Some alleged “authority” will try to cut you down.

  • A Great Summary On The Importance Of “On Duties” In The Western Tradition

    Here’s a very good paper from 2014 that discusses the importance of On Duties in the Western tradition. It’s one of the best summaries out there, and I think readers will benefit from going through it.  The writers call it a “core text for every curriculum.”

  • Petrarch Reflects On The Causes And Cures For His Depression

    The Renaissance literary figure Petrarch met his fame and success with ambivalence.  On the one hand it was the fulfillment of what he had worked for, but on the other, it left him with deep feelings of unease.  These feelings eventually ripened into outright contempt for those who could not understand the origin of his malaise.

  • Wisdom, Intelligence, Education, And Leaving A Job

    We deal with a few recent questions from readers.  They are:

  • Brazil’s “Rubber Soldiers”: A Tale Of Courage And Woe

    I had a chance yesterday to learn more about a strange and tragic incident in recent Brazilian history:  the country’s so-called “rubber soldiers” (soldados na borracha) program of the Second World War.  The story is almost totally unknown in the United States, and for this reason I thought it would be worthwhile to share some…

  • Some Wisdom From Chilon And Diogenes

    Here are some sayings and stories taken from Diogenes Laertius’s Lives of the Philosophers.  I’ve mentioned this book in a few previous articles here.  Practical life advice, amusing anecdotes, and mischievous criticisms of famous names never lose their freshness or fail to bring a smile.  Indeed, we often forget that one of the greatest lessons…

  • Many Go To The Market-Place, But Few Seek The Crown At Olympia

    Diogenes Laertius’s Lives of the Philosophers contains interesting stories and sayings of a great many ancient Greek sages, of whom most we would otherwise know almost nothing.  My own well-worn copy of the book presented me recently with the wit and wisdom of Lyco, who is said to have lived from 299 to 225 B.C.…

  • “Someone’s Lecturing Me On How To Be A Parent” (Podcast)

    A reader is annoyed that someone is trying to tell him how he should approach and think about his parental responsibilities. This person is appears to be crossing lines of decorum, but as often happens, I suspect there is more to the story here.

  • Mehmet II (The Conqueror) Takes Constantinople

    Many decades before 1453 (the year Constantinople finally fell to the Ottoman Turks), the Byzantine “Empire” had become a sad parody of its former self.  Mismanagement, bad leadership, and the inability of the old state to cope with the challenges of its strategic environment had fatally doomed it long before Ottoman cannon breached its walls.

  • Michael Psellus On The Challenge Of Being An Emperor

    Michael Psellus (1017-1078?) was a Greek cleric, historian, and advisor to a number of Byzantine emperors.  His work, known by the name Chronographia, is a series of biographical portraits of fourteen emperors occupying the throne of the Eastern Roman Empire from about 978 to 1050.  Although not a well-known work, it is a candid and intimate…

  • The Grave Of Suleiman The Magnificent

    A news agency recently reported the discovery of the tomb of Suleiman the Magnificient, who by general consensus was the greatest of all the Ottoman sultans.  Suleiman, who lived from 1494 to 1566, is now nearly unknown in the West; but he was, in the words of one eminent historian, “the greatest and ablest ruler…

  • “This We Do Not Tolerate” (Podcast)

    We discuss a moral problem that arose in Japanese prison camps in the Second World War. We discuss how the same moral issue is relevant today, and what Cicero’s response to it would have been. What duty is owed to our fellow man?  When does the pursuit of self-interest go too far?

  • Should There Be Regulations On Platform Businesses?

    “Platform businesses” have been all the rage for years now.  The general idea of a platform business is that it provides an opportunity for a buyer and a seller to meet and perform a transaction.  Airbnb, Fiverr, and Uber are examples of such businesses. [To read the rest of the article, click here.]  

  • Developing Light Machine-Gun Tactics

    Today we take for granted the fact that infantry units are equipped with all sorts of portable firepower.  Squads carrying light machine-guns are accepted as natural and part of the battlefield equation.  But it was not always so.

  • Is The World Worse Today Than It Used To Be? (Podcast)

    We often get the impression that the world is in chaos, and that the proverbial sky is falling down. Yet our perceptions are distorted by factors that we often fail to appreciate. We discuss some of them.

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Original copy of Cicero’s De Officiis (On Duties) published in Holland in 1642.  From the collection of Fortress of the Mind.