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“the term ‘hippie trail’ began to circulate in the late 1960s: it referred principally to the long route from London (or sometimes Amsterdam) to Katmandu.” | The Protestant Reformation and freedom of conscience
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Flags, Chinese Pirates, and the American Navy | Naval power and trade
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Xi Jinping is looking more and more like Mao | The legacy of autocratic rule in China
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that time when North Korea saved Benin from a coup led by mercenaries | The re-privatization of security
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how Brexit has reopened old Irish wounds | Credit and the Great Famine of Ireland
the National Interest
BC’s weekend reads
- Madonna offers oral sex for those who vote Hillary Clinton
- Trump-inspired ‘pussy’ ad banned in San Francisco subway
- The poverty of democracy
- The battle for the Arctic
- Countries rush for upper hand in Antarctica
- Why not world government? (Part 2)
- Meet China’s state-approved Muslims
- The good, the bad, and the ugly of Somaliland secession
BC’s weekend reads
- Generals and Political Interventions in American History
- “they neglect to take account of the experiences of postcolonial states that form the vast majority of members of the international system. “
- The U.S. Hasn’t ‘Pulled Back’ from the Middle East At All
- No special sharia rules in American courts for Muslims’ wrongful-death recovery
- Is Gary Johnson a True Libertarian? American libertarianism has a purge problem
- Identity politics and the perils of zero-sum thinking
BC’s weekend reads
- China’s Legalist Revival
- Does Europe need a new Warsaw Pact?
- Daniel Larison (PhD in Russian History) on Trump’s foreign policy speech
- The Anti-Trumplodytes
- Why Popular Sovereignty requires the due process of law
BC’s weekend reads
- Bohumil Hrabal: the life, times, letters and politics of a Czech novelist
- What Davos Missed by Excluding North Korea
- The Rise and Fall of the Soviet ‘Death Star’
- Searching for Vadim Kozin, the Soviet tango king
- Are we likely to see new nation-states emerge this century?
- Historical Methodology and the Believer (of Islam)
BC’s weekend reads
- France has less and less influence in the EU, and fears to use what it still has (peep B-Stock here at NOL from awhile back, too)
- U of Missouri Student VP: “I think that it’s important for us to create that distinction and create a space where we can all learn from one another and start to create a place of healing rather than a place where we are experiencing a lot of hate like we have in the past.” Mmhm. And what better way to learn from one another than by restricting what can and cannot be said?
- Along the Divide: Israel’s Allies (long book review)
- Standing Up for Migrant Workers in the Arab Gulf (don’t forget Amit’s piece on migrant workers from Bangladesh here at NOL)
- Economic rationality versus full rationality
- Rand Paul strikes back
- The Case for Brexit (contra B-Stock here at NOL)
BC’s weekend reads
- Our own Edwin van de Haar being interviewed about Degrees of Freedom (audio interview)
- Does Gun Control Work? Ben Carson Says Yes. ADL Says No but Yes
- The Vanishing Europe of Jürgen Habermas
- Leviathan (movie review)
- Thinking Anew | What, precisely, changed in the 18th century? (book review)
- This Is What Russia REALLY Fears in Syria
Around the Web
- Hokusai and the wave that swept the world
- Xenophobia in South Africa: Historical Legacies of Exclusion and Violence
- Death in Venice: Eighteenth Century Critiques of Republicanism
- 2 Fantastic Exhibitions at the Asian Art Museum
- Not All Libertarian Rightists/Leftists Are “Thick”: A Reminder
- What We Can Learn from Confederate Foreign Policy
Around the Web
- Athens on the Midway: Defending Leo Strauss
- Should Earth Shut the Hell Up?
- Space of Mediation: Why do international labor recruiters in China charge so much, and why are they difficult to regulate?
- The strange normality of life in the middle of Syria’s war
Christmas went well. I’ve got four books I have to read before the three books I ordered from amazon.com (thanks to a gift card) arrive.
Around the Web
- The first Gulf War in 1991 was the US’s opening Iraqi mistake
- The art history of an unknown Korea
- Damon Root sums up Obama’s disappointing year with the Supreme Court
- Brazil: Cinema’s most radical battleground
- How to have law without legislation
- If Scotland Goes: First the empire disappeared. Now Britain itself could crumble. Scottish independence would have global implications
Notes On Liberty 