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Looking Back

Tree of Knowledge

Genealogy is a popular hobby, but the concept of the family tree has attracted remarkably little highbrow thinking in recent centuries. Yet, the family tree is one of the most ...

Mussolini and the Quadrumvirs during the March on Rome in 1922

Is Benito Finito, or Just Getting Started?

This week marks eighty years since the death of Mussolini on 28 April 1945. All the more surprising, then, that he is currently Italy’s reigning Man of the Year. The ...

British Guiana 1856

Approval of Stamps

A French antiquarian bookseller from whom I buy books from time to time sends them to me through the post with old-fashioned postage stamps on the packet. How pleased I am when I ...

Auschwitz, Poland

The Third Worlding of the American Mind

You know what I hate? Liberals! Ooooh, I hate ’em so much. Bet you do too. C’mon, shake your fist at ’em with me. C’mon, do it! Shake harder, boy; they’re still ...

Chynna Phillips

Christmas Snow and Black Dealers

Ah, my annual Christmas column, where I get to write about anything that tickles my fancy. So about the New Avengers “Angels of Death” episode... Okay, okay, sorry. I’ve ...

So, What Happened?

This is the time when every pundit explains that Kamala Harris lost due to this thing he saw coming first. So, now’s my turn. Before explaining how I was right all along, let ...

Joe Flaherty

Funny as a Crutch, or a Wheelchair

Yes, for those who are asking, Elon nuked me from Twitter. Perma-ban—irreversible. Yes, it involved the Holocaust. But let’s talk about that next week, okay? Because a great ...

Rush Limbaugh

Hushed Limbaugh

How did this nation ever get to the point where a man once considered nothing more than a tacky, loud, nouveau-riche liberal NYC real estate mogul/celebrity, with an orange ...

Judges of History

Last week, I gave a talk to my local historical society about a distinguished lady who lived locally and died sixty years ago this year. After my talk, a middle-aged ...

George Santos

Year-End Cleanup, Part II

As we ring in 2024, here’s Part II of my annual “bits that didn’t merit a full column but I still want to get them off my chest” year-end rant. Santos and Sinners A ...

Year-End Cleanup, Part I

I usually take it easy on myself for my Christmas and New Year’s pieces by penning less labor-intensive columns. In part because I love the season too much to get bogged down by ...

Ismet Inonu

Turkey, Eight Decades Later

Two days before flying to Turkey for a few days, I found a little book published in 1944 titled La Turquie d’Ismet Ineunu (The Turkey of Ismet Inonu). It was published by ...

It’s the Indians, Nikole

Back in 2019, the executive editor of The New York Times, Dean Baquet, reassured a restive newsroom that while, admittedly, the Times’ plan A to dump Trump—Russiagate—had ...

Edward Jay Epstein

Epstein’s Epic

Ever since his 1966 book Inquest documented that the Warren Commission’s own staffers believed that their enquiry into who shot JFK had been too rushed to be reliable, Edward ...

Great Shakes

I was going to write another heavy duty current events data analysis column, but then I got distracted and/or lazy, so this essay is going to wander off to a more fun topic. When ...

Scholars Rank Biggest Spending Presidents as the Greatest

Before President Joe Biden entered the White House, he consulted with several prominent historians about how to be a great commander in chief. Their answer: Grow government. ...

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