The Civil War was even bloodier than we thought.For over a century historians assumed 618,222 was a reasonably accurate estimate of the Civil War dead.Binghamton University Professor David Hacker’s new study challenges those numbers. Instead of relying upon scattered military records that could be incomplete or difficult to track down like the 1890s count (compiled […]

Is Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood hoping to emulate success of the AK Party in Turkey? The Financial Times (subscription req) reports that in choosing to fete a presidential candidate, the Brotherhood is looking to take on the country’s hitherto dominant military: [T]he Brotherhood dropped a bombshell at the weekend with a decision to nominate Khairat al-Shater, […]

Regular Via Meadia readers know that the Arab Spring has been a lot messier than the starry-eyed press portrayals that accompanied its advent. From repression of minorities, to marginalization of liberals, to disempowerment of women, to an alarming rise in the political power of Islamists and anti-semites, the revolutions sweeping the Arab world have not […]

American officials announced late last week that they will begin to relax some of the sanctions on Myanmar. Travel bans on most senior Myanmar officials will be removed, the US will appoint an ambassador in the coming days, and American aid and NGO officials will be allowed to commence working in the country. The easing of […]

An eleven-year old Dutch boy was awarded €100 for his proposal on how best to eject a country from the eurozone. According to the FT, “his plan involved Greeks receiving drachma in return for their euros, which would be combined to form ‘a pancake or pizza’ – whether metaphorically or literally was not specified – that […]

The past few years have seen a number of blue-state Democratic governors—from California to New York to Vermont—driven by dire fiscal situations to attack the blue model. Yet this tide of reform washing over the Democratic Party at the state level still hasn’t gone national.Up until recently, President Obama had been somewhat vague on this […]

Adam Garfinkle, who edits The American Interest by day and sometimes writes for the online edition by night, points out in his latest essay that, as he’s argued before, Libya was to have far-reaching consequences in direct and indirect ways: What is going on in Mali is a direct consequence of what went on over […]

Over at The Daily Dish, Andrew Sullivan has an appreciation of Montaigne, noting that the 17th century French essayist invented a literary form that upended politics throughout the west and still shapes the blogosphere today.As Sullivan reminds us, Montaigne turned ‘declamation into conversation’: he wrote essays as if he were talking to friends at a […]

William Easterly reports on an important archaeological discovery this morning; the IMF’s report on economic conditions in Judea almost 2000 years ago.  After meeting with Governor Pontius Pilate and other members of the government, the IMF team praised Judea’s progress in promoting democracy and the rule of law despite some recent “minor political disturbances involving […]

Here at Via Meadia we have been closely following the slow and sometimes painful process of change in American higher education. Yet it’s worth keeping in mind that, despite all the turmoil, American schools remain the envy of the world, and America’s soft-power lure is still strong, especially in China. As the FT reports, the […]