Part II To help understand our present turmoil, I’ve been promoting the book The Calm Before the Storm. But I’ve also discovered another book along similar lines, published more than 25 years ago. Here’s a quote, predicting events in our era, wherein the authors speak of a “Crisis era populism,” in which “a charismatic anti-intellectual […]
The Mongols. The Chinese. Persians. The Greeks. Rome. The Islamic Caliphates. Spain. England. The United States. Notice anything special about this list of historic Imperial powers? Such as the fact that Empire almost always appears to shift from East to West? And now, having circled the globe during the last 2500 years, it seems to
By George Friedman This is a profoundly wise book. And in many ways a shocking one. According to Friedman’s prediction (the book came out in 2020), who would win the 2024 presidency would be irrelevant. No matter which party won, it would be a failed presidency. Combining the skills of political and cultural historian with
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I thought I had been invited to a class in Nahuatl, the ancient language of the indigenous peoples of this part of Mexico, the Aztecs. But the actual name of the language is Mechica, or Mexica. Nahuatl is a Mechica word for harmony. What? Harmony? The Aztecs? Those bloodthirsty tyrants who dominated all the smaller
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Prophecy is between the angels and the people. —Thomas Aquinas I finally met one. An angel. I was exhausted. Depressed. Hopeless. Maybe suicidal. Sick of politics and organizing. Walking down Wilson Avenue. Out of the corner of my eye, saw an old wino approaching, not unusual on Wilson. He staggered closer, then . . .
