My edited book, America's Macroeconomy: A Quarter Millennial History, is out just in time for the 250th! Order here: cambridgescholars.com/produc…

What many people don't understand about writing is that it does not consist of putting in words something you have thought through. It consists of thinking through the thing you're writing about by the act of writing--and rewriting and rewriting and rewriting. I have had the privilege of knowing several brilliant writers. I have known only one who wrote brilliantly in his first draft. James Q. Wilson. So if you're on his level, you don't need AI to do your writing. If you're not, using AI forecloses insights that can set your text apart.

Zinn is the overly generic pop history text that gets assigned in "First Year Humanities 101" and that sloppy critics of higher ed mistake as the content of advanced history graduate seminars. Unfortunately, those who teach advanced history graduate seminars often do themselves no favors in correcting this claim because they also instinctively defend Zinn's weaker political claims because they view him as being on the same ideological team. And round and round the two sides go from there.

But my eyes are toward you, O God, my Lord; in you I seek refuge - Psalm 141:8

From the late 1980s til 2000, Marx's Das Kapital averaged about 500 citations per year in scholarly publications. Over the last decade, it has not dipped below 5,000. The explosion of academic Marxism is one of the most significant stories in higher ed in the past 40 years.

Clyde Wilson makes a good case for this, for those who have ears to hear.

And we have to wonder, is this sort of thing the real plumbing of American politics? Not really a “war of ideas” is it?

As the United States approaches its 250th anniversary, what role can the Declaration of Independence play in shaping a shared civic identity for the next generation? Hear distinguished historians Gordon Wood and Jack Greene reflect on the Declaration’s enduring significance, its place in modern political thought, and how we ought to commemorate the American Founding this July at 🔗 youtu.be/EgDoSHK9U0Y

250 years ago today South Carolina adopted its provisional constitution in Charles Town.

One of my favorite mutuals is doing incredible work on the origins of America

Clyde Wilson writes that Murray Rothbard, M.E. Bradford and Russel Kirk were beloved. "Beloved only as leaders of wisdom, truth, and courage can be in a time starved for genuine leadership."

Is the goal to eliminate the Nazi regime or free Poland or defend Britain or weaken the Axis or stop the Holocaust or what?

If Khomeini is indeed dead and the regime collapses, thus potentially ends the Great Ninth Crusade (Nov. 5, 1956 - Feb. 27, 2026).

Anybody heard from Tamar today? She's bound to be all up in the middle of this thing.

John C. Calhoun is considered by many to be one of the greatest statesman and political philosophers of American history. In this podcast, we will explore his core philosophy, practical policies, and biography. Full Video: patreon.com/posts/151566855

My latest for the Center for Religion, Culture, and Democracy covers the ever present controversy about Christianity and the American founders. I interact with Daniel Dreisbach's excellent work. crcd.net/essay2-reading-the-…

Again, it would have been ideal had the DNC not weaponized American's welcoming liberality to flood the country with illegal fake voters, at taxpayer expense, in order to game elections to maintain power and increase hegemony over the country to foil a populist revolt. What exactly should be done about that? I don't know but everything happening in Minnesota needs to be seen within this context. Everything.

Just because the mullahs in Iran losing power would be good for Israel doesn't mean it wouldn't be great for the Iranian people as well. Please don't let Israel break your brain. IDS turns people into morons, the same as Trump Derangement Syndrome.

WHO ruined Europe? Yes, EVERYONE did it: 1. Angela Merkel, the physicist who forgot Newton’s Third Law: every action has an equal and opposite reaction. She looked at the European energy grid, decided nuclear power was "scary," and replaced it with a direct pipeline to the Kremlin. She basically invited the fox into the henhouse, handed him a napkin, and then retired to write a memoir about "stability." She effectively dismantled the continent’s borders with a single press conference, inviting a migration crisis that broke the social contract, all while muttering "Wir schaffen das" as the infrastructure crumbled under the weight of her moral vanity. 2. Emmanuel Macron, a man who thinks he is the reincarnation of a Roman deity but runs the country like a McKinsey consultant trying to downsize a bakery. He believes he can solve the war in Ukraine by talking Vladimir Putin into a coma with four-hour lectures on Enlightenment philosophy. He is currently auditing the concept of "French culture" to see if it can be streamlined. 3. Adolf Hitler, the failed watercolor enthusiast who took an art school rejection so personally he decided to redecorate the continent with high explosives. He single-handedly ruined the toothbrush mustache, the name "Adolf," and the concept of "German efficiency" for the next thousand years. He set the bar for "bad neighbors" so high that everyone else gets a participation trophy just for not invading Poland. 4. The Habsburgs, the ultimate proof that you should really branch out on Tinder. They treated the gene pool like a private VIP section and turned their family tree into a wreath. Their grand strategy for ruling Europe was "Let’s marry our cousins until our chins are so large they have their own zip codes." They spent 600 years acquiring half the planet through weddings, only to lose it all because their driver took a wrong turn in Sarajevo. They held an empire together with duct tape and aggressive waltzing until it collapsed under the weight of its own genetic defects. 5. Napoleon, who tried to turn Europe into a family franchise (Bonaparte Bros. & Co.) and accidentally invented "Nationalism" because people needed a specific word to describe exactly how much they wanted him to leave. 6. The English, who spent 500 years playing "Balance of Power" (read: sabotaging everyone else), then got drunk, and view the continent not as a cultural partner, but as a place to send stag parties to vomit in historic fountains, proving that while they lost the Empire, they kept the audacity. 7. The Germans, who believe that if you execute a terrible idea with sufficient efficiency, it becomes a stroke of genius. They don't have "individual opinions," they have "factory settings." They marched in perfect lockstep to shut down their nuclear plants in favor of burning brown coal, calling it a "Green Transition"—which is the intellectual equivalent of cutting off your own legs to lose weight, then praising the precision of the saw. They are convinced that running full speed into a brick wall is fine, provided the wall is DIN-certified and everyone does it together. 8. The Russians, who think "international borders" are just typos on a map that need correcting with tanks. They provide Europe with its two favorite historical exports: existential dread and freezing to death. They operate on a political philosophy of "If I can't have it, nobody can," which is why they are currently turning the East into a parking lot. 9. The EU, a retirement home for failed national politicians. It is a Kafkaesque labyrinth where 10,000 people in Brussels spend six months debating the legal definition of a carrot while the building is on fire. It is funded by your VAT, presided over by unelected bureaucrats with excellent dental plans, and produces more paper than a forestry company. 10. The WEF, the unelected board of directors for Planet Earth. They ruined Europe by promoting policies that hollowed out the middle class in the name of "stakeholder capitalism." They fly in on private jets to tell factory workers to lower their standard of living, effectively turning the continent into a feudal system where the serfs own nothing, eat bugs, and are told to be happy about it. 11. George Soros, the currency speculator masquerading as a secular saint. He ruined Europe by treating entire national economies as casino chips, famously breaking the Bank of England for profit and then using the winnings to fund the erosion of the nation-states. He operates the "Open Society" less like a philanthropy and more like a universal solvent, pouring billions into NGOs designed to dissolve borders, traditions, and social cohesion. He is the unelected architect of a post-national Europe, a man with a god complex who believes he can engineer civilization from a hedge fund desk, viewing distinct cultures as "obstacles" to be liquidated like a distressed asset. 12. Immigrationists, who looked at the fall of Rome and thought, "You know what the problem was? Not enough diversity." They believe borders are just social constructs, like manners or solvency, that stand in the way of a vibrant, chaotic utopia where everyone holds hands while the welfare state collapses under the weight of good intentions. 13. Ecologists, upper-middle-class art critics who think the best way to lower global temperatures is to throw pumpkin soup at a Van Gogh. They are fighting Big Oil by creating massive traffic jams on the M25, forcing thousands of cars to idle for four hours. 14. The Socialists, who think "economics" is just a vibe. They believe that if you tax the rich enough, money will magically appear from the ether to pay for free unicorn rides. They ran out of other people's money in 1989 but haven't checked their bank balance since, preferring to pay debts with IOUs and "solidarity." 15. The European Establishments, shadowy clubs of people who all went to the same three boarding schools where they majored in "Condescension" and "Failing Upwards." They decided that "competence" was an outdated concept that interfered with their lunch schedule and are professionally surprised by outcomes that everyone else saw coming five years ago. 16. Weak Men, who turned masculinity into a permanent apology tour. These are men who treat assertiveness as a microaggression and testosterone as a hazardous material. They are so terrified of offending a woman that they have evolved into a species of sentient doormats, viewing their own spine as an optional accessory that might upset the HR department. They smile through their own emasculation, nodding along to policies that erase them, and would rather watch their civilization burn than risk a slightly awkward conversation at a dinner party. They didn't just open the gates to the barbarians; they apologized for the lock being too oppressive and offered to carry their luggage. 17. Feminists, who proved equality is real by showing that women can be just as disastrously incompetent as men. They replaced "The Patriarchy" with "Girl-Bossing the economy into a ditch". They doubled the pool of eligible ruin-bringers, which is statistically impressive. 18. The Woke, the morality police who will cancel you for using the wrong pronoun for a hamster but don't know how to change a lightbulb. They are busy deconstructing the colonial implications of a cheese sandwich while the power grid fails and the industrial base crumbles into dust. 19. Darth Vader. He represents the ultimate bureaucratic dream: a faceless, unelected technocrat who can strangle dissent from across the room without ever raising his voice. He tried to federalize the galaxy through terror, proving that a centralized superstate works perfectly right up until a farm boy in a glorified crop duster exploits a regulatory loophole in your thermal exhaust port to blow up the whole economy. 20. Saruman, the patron saint of Heavy Industry and deforestation. He tried to modernize Central Europe with a sensible policy of "machines over trees" and was cancelled by a bunch of angry walking broccoli. 21. Sauron, the original advocate for a unified Europe under one (literal) eye. He was a visionary industrialist who favored heavy surveillance and deregulation of the orc labor market, but his foreign policy regarding Gondor was a bit aggressive for the UN Security Council. 22. Satan, who is actually in therapy for impostor syndrome. He looked at European politics and realized he simply couldn't compete with this level of self-destructive creativity.