A Chinese sage wrote to an elderly scholar retired from official duties with two suggestions—to acquire a young concubine, or to learn how to paint dragons on red silk.  I am an elderly scholar and I have now retired from most of my official duties.  I have given serious thought to the two suggestions and […]

The last time Spain faced the Netherlands in a really big match they were wearing cuirasses and carrying swords. Nobody will be killed at Sunday’s World Cup match, but the Dutch will sing the same anthem—Het Wilhelmus—that they sang in 1573 at the siege of Haarlem and in 1577 when the Prince of Orange’s forces […]

Welcome to my last post; it’s been a great run.This is not the last post I will make on the blog; it’s the last post I have written as a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.  There are still a few loose ends to tie up, a few things to pack in the […]

London is an odd place for an American to spend the Fourth of July, but the way the schedule worked out this summer, this happened to be the best time for me to make a quick trip.  I’ve been putting some ideas together about Anglo-American relations, the decline and fall of great powers and the […]

I am spending about a week in London and it has been harder than usual to find time to post.  That will change shortly; I look forward to getting back on track with the blog.  London is a city of bloggers: Pepys, Addison, Steele, Johnson — and it’s hard not to be inspired here.

Edward Luttwak’s The Grand Strategy of the Byzantine Empire
eruditely makes the case that such a thing actually existed.

Perhaps the strangest thing about black America today is how little we talk about it.

A new life of Dr. Seuss, American icon.

President Obama’s Science Envoy and a Nobel laureate in chemistry has an idea for restoring America’s image in the Middle East.

The amazing dumb luck of a Victorian romantic gone native.