This post is an essay by Toke Reichstein from his Substack. Here's a link to the original. The key issue is the title: "Who Gets to Decide What Matters Most?" In the course of this essay, he deploys economics at its best in trying to sort out this problem. He shows that simplistic approaches to setting … Continue reading Toke Richstein — Who Gets to Decide What Matters Most?
This post is a commentary on a new book by Michael Magoon, From Poverty to Progress: Understanding Humanity's Greatest Achievement. The topic is one that makes a lot of academics, and progressives in particular, nervous. Is it really ok to suggest that history sometimes means progress? That sounds like what they used to call Whig history, … Continue reading Michael Magoon — From Poverty to Progress
This post is a brief commentary on historian Walter Scheidel's book, Escape from Rome. It's a stunningly original analysis of a topic that has long fascinated scholars like me: How did Europe come to create the modern world? His answer is this: Europe became the cauldron of modernity and the dominant power in the world … Continue reading How the Fall of the Roman Empire Spurred the Rise of Modernity — and What this Suggests about Rise of US Higher Ed
This post is a tribute to a wonderful essay by the great British historian of working-class history, E. P. Thompson. His classic work is The Making of the English Working Class, published in 1966. The paper I'm touting here provides a lovely window into the heart of his craft, which is an unlikely combination of … Continue reading E.P. Thompson: Time, Work-Discipline, and Industrial Capitalism
This post is a brief commentary on historian Walter Scheidel's book, Escape from Rome. It's a stunningly original analysis of a topic that has long fascinated scholars like me: How did Europe come to create the modern world? His answer is this: Europe became the cauldron of modernity and the dominant power in the world … Continue reading How the Fall of the Roman Empire Spurred the Rise of Modernity — and What this Suggests about Rise of US Higher Ed
This post is a reflection on Michael Sandel's new book, The Tyranny of Merit: What's Become of the Common Good? He's a philosopher at Harvard and this is his analysis of the dangers posed by the American meritocracy. The issue is one I've been exploring here for the last two years in a variety of … Continue reading Sandel: The Tyranny of Merit
This is a lovely essay by Clare Coffey from the summer issue of Hedgehog Review. In it she explores the extremes in contemporary American life through the medium of two recent books: those who have been shunted aside in the knowledge economy and destined to deaths of despair, and those who occupy the flashiest reaches … Continue reading Clare Coffey — Closing Time: We’re All Counting Bodies
Last summer I posted a classic lecture by the great German sociologist, Max Weber, "Science as a vocation." Recently I ran across a terrific essay by George Blaustein about Weber's vision of the modern world, drawing on this lecture and two other seminal works: the lecture "Politics as a Vocation" (delivered a year after … Continue reading Blaustein: Searching for Consolation in Max Weber’s Work Ethic
This post is a brief commentary on historian Walter Scheidel's latest book, Escape from Rome. It's a stunningly original analysis of a topic that has long fascinated scholars like me: How did Europe come to create the modern world? His answer is this: Europe became the cauldron of modernity and the dominant power in the … Continue reading Escape from Rome: How the Loss of Empire Spurred the Rise of Modernity — and What this Suggests about US Higher Ed
This post is a tribute to a wonderful essay by the great British historian of working-class history, E. P. Thompson. His classic work is The Making of the English Working Class, published in 1966. The paper I'm touting here provides a lovely window into the heart of his craft, which is an unlikely combination of … Continue reading E.P. Thompson: Time, Work-Discipline, and Industrial Capitalism
