From 1405 to 1433, the Ming rulers of China sent ‘treasure fleets’ to Southeast Asia, India, the Middle East, and as far as Mozambique. And then in 1434 the Portuguese reached Western Sahara, after which they went farther south every […]
History
Was It Early Medieval Catholic Family Law That Made the Western World Unique?
Joseph Henrich argues that the Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic world got its uniqueness from family codes imposed by the Church in the Early Middle Ages. The key parts of these codes were not restrictions on same-sex marriage or […]
What Being against ‘CRT’ and ‘Wokeness’ Should Not Mean
Those who want to fight against ‘CRT’ and ‘wokeness’ are doing a good thing. But it should not be an excuse for going back and whitewashing our history [pun sort of intended]. I admire the efforts of those on the […]
If We Want to Celebrate National Emancipation, There’s a Better Alternative Than Juneteenth
The new holiday of June 19, though its celebration has spread nationally, has a particular application to Texas. But there is another date that would be more suitable as a national holiday of emancipation: December 18. June 19, known as […]
The Most ‘Politically Correct’ University in America
Some of the rules adopted in the last few years by secular universities, and even high schools, bear a suspicious resemblance to measures adopted more than 100 years ago by Christian colleges. All they need now is a ‘doctrinal statement’ […]
Individual Responsibility in Ezekiel
The heresy of ‘critical theory’ has revived ideas of guilt inherited by, or inherent in, groups, such as genders, races, or economic classes. The Prophet Ezekiel has some choice things to say about all this. In our time there is […]
Guest Post: “An Expanded Vision of ‘Western Heritage’: Why It Matters for Education”
The solution to the narrow focus of classical liberal arts education is to preserve their time-tested methods, but broaden their subject matter in both geography and time beyond ‘the Western Tradition’ as conventionally understood. In this piece, I summarize thousands […]
On the Urbanist Classic, “Crabgrass Frontier,” by Kenneth T. Jackson
One of the classic books on the history of suburbia is Kenneth Jackson’s Crabgrass Frontier. It came out in 1985, two years before my personal favorite, Bourgeois Utopias, by Robert Fishman. This book notice discusses Crabgrass Frontier in view of […]
Don’t Blame the Boomers for Everything
Here I affirm that most of the serious structural changes in society associated with the Baby Boomer generation were, in fact, set in place by people far older. The Boomers, however, certainly took advantage of them! And we, on the […]
A Croatia Travelogue
Or more properly, a Dalmatia and Istria travelogue. We arrived in Dubrovnik on August 19 and crossed into Italy on August 28. It was a whirlwind, because it was compressed between an event in Edinburgh, Scotland, that we had to […]