Trusted Writing on History, Travel, and American Culture Since 1949
Al-Qaeda
The great historian Donald Kagan, who passed away this month, reminded us that we can often see into the future by studying the past.
We have all seen the disturbing images recently of the fall of Afghanistan. After 20 years of military presence, with over $3 trillion spent and, more tragically, over 2000 American lives lost, the last American forces left the country.
The soldier-historian-novelist Ralph Peters looks at how the world has changed in the past decade, and finds that America is both a hostage to history and likely to be saved by it.
Military historians sometimes write biographies of people they call military intellectuals.
A year after the September attacks, it has become clear that ours is a very old enemy.
The trouble with military trials
Secret military tribunals, from which there is no appeal, are imbued with the power to order the secret execution of non-citizens, the suspension of habeas corpus for suspected terrorists, and the abrogation of attorney-client confidentiality.
How our technologies are still our allies
In the early 1880s, a Maine-born inventor named Hiram Maxim, who had tried and failed to become a leading figure in the young electrical industry, met a fellow American in Vienna who told him, “Hang your chemistry and electricity!
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