Category: History
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‘The Wrong Side of History’
This is a re-thought and much improved version of a post that first appeared on this weblog on 15 May 2012. ………………………….. I once heard a prominent conservative tell an ideological opponent that he was 'on the wrong side of history.' This question I want to raise is whether this is a phrase that a…
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The Erasure of History at the University of Leicester
Another incident in the suicide of the West. And in England of all places. The battle appears to be lost in the mother country and in the rest of the Anglosphere with the exception of the United States of America. Here is where the West will make its last stand, or else begin to turn…
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History
History may have lessons to teach us, but we don't agree on what they are; so we learn nothing usefully applicable to the present.
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Study history to know yourself and what you are capable of
In this important video, Jordan Peterson explains how history describes you. Part of what he is doing is railing against the pernicious leftist displacement of evil onto external conditions, social and economic, and its removal from its original and true locus, the foul and diseased heart of the human animal. For your own good, please…
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History Lesson
The Pitesti Gulag in Romania
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Readings for Dark Times
When the light of liberty was extinguished in Germany 1933-1945, many escaped to America. But when the light of liberty is extinguished here, there will be no place left to go. What was it like to live in the Third Reich? What can we learn that may be of use in the present darkness? I…
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Rebel with a Cause
"The eighty-year-old mystery of the murder of Sheldon Robert Harte, Leon Trotsky’s most controversial bodyguard." Jean van Heijenoort was another of the Old Man's bodyguards. I met van Heijenoort in the mid-70s when he came to Boston College on the invitation of my quondam girlfriend, Charaine H., a student at Brandeis University where van Heijenoort…
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‘The Wrong Side of History’
(An edited re-post from 15 May 2012.) I once heard a prominent conservative tell an ideological opponent that he was 'on the wrong side of history.' But surely this is a phrase that no self-aware and self-consistent conservative should use. The phrase suggests that history is moving in a certain direction, toward various outcomes, and…
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“History is written by the victors.”
The cynicism of the saying presupposes the reality of the past.
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Plague in an Ancient City
"Plague in an Ancient City" by Michiel Sweerts (1618-1664 AD) is believed to depict the Plague of Athens (430-427 BC). Oil on canvas. Painted c. 1652-1654 AD. 118.7 cm (46.7 in) x 170.8 cm (67.2 in). (Courtesy of Los Angeles County Museum of Art) Now read the outstanding essay by Victor Davis Hanson, The Scab…
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The Fall of the Wall
Thirty years ago, today. Here we come face to face with the fundamental reason for the collapse of European Communism. For all of the sophisticated “structural” and “materialist” analyses of the Communist world, it comes down to the simple fact that the European Communist rulers—most of them anyway—lost the will to shoot their own people…
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Political Hatred: A Look Back at Nixon
Has any president of the United States been the object of deeper hatred than Donald Trump? Abraham Lincoln perhaps. But in recent decades only Richard Nixon comes close. Both Nixon and Trump elicit mindless rage, and for similar reasons. The elites hate both because they have no class. That's the short answer. For nuance we…
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9/11: Eighteen Years After
And the nation's borders are still not secure. The morning of 9/11 was a beautiful, dry Arizona morning. Back from a hard run, I flipped on the TV while doing some cool-down exercises only to see one of the planes crash into one of the towers. I knew right away what was going on. I…
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Victor Davis Hanson on Quiet America’s Resilience
Conservatives such as Victor Davis Hanson have a sense of history and are respectful of its lessons. Leftists are a species of retromingent who piss on the past and seek its erasure. That is why they tear down historical monuments. Leftists confuse the world with their utopian fantasy of what they would like it to…
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The Erasure of History
The Left's assault on collective memory via the redacting and outright erasure of the historical record is quite convenient for them: it ensures that the memory of its iniquities will be kept hidden.