G. K. Chesterton—a reactionary hero of mine and someone I try my best to imitate when I write rambling essays about whatever old thing that happens to cross my mind—took his subtitles seriously. (Well, as seriously as he took anything.) In one of his articles, the one published in the London News the day before he died in fact, he wrote that “those who endure the heavy labour of reading a book might possibly endure that of reading the title-page of a book.” He was talking to literary critics in particular, whom he suggested “might solve many of their problems […]

“The worst form of inequality is the attempt to make unequal things equal.” – Aristotle. I visit cemeteries when I travel. The old monuments are important for understanding a place. Who visits Egypt without going to the Great Pyramids? It’s a tomb. It says a hell of a story. So do the mounds in Ireland. Fewer people will visit the boneyards of abandoned prisons or war cemeteries in Spain or Virginia. They can tell as immense a story if you look deeply. I’ve been to graveyards all over the world, big and small. Archeologically they’re important. They’re also the best […]

Michael Pillsbury is a man experienced and knowledgeable in the political sphere. His work has informed Presidents, Generals, and Congressman and determined the strength and scope of their policies. He is one of those men who hide behind the curtain, those whose words send legions of spooks into action. But all indirectly, all hands off, all through analysis. And it’s fitting. He’s got the looks for it. He’s also the mastermind behind the recent foreign policy hit, “The Hundred-Year Marathon: China’s Secret Strategy to Replace America as the Global Superpower”. In it he scares the bejesus out of American bureaucrats […]