“The cemeteries are full of indispensable people.” In one form or another, this observation has been made many times over the last century or more. What is true of people is true of nations. In the past 25 years or so it was often claimed (and , admittedly, often denied) that, in the modern world, […]
Academia
The other day I received an email from what might be one the few colleagues still checking into Twitter (most seem to have moved to Bluesky, as have I). The email was just a link with the subject title Did you see? I hadn’t. Gosh, I wrote in response (which I gather they found a little understated). My […]
Crooked Timber has survived more than 20 years by continuously refreshing our group. Members have left because they have said what they want to say, or just because life happens, and others have joined to add to the conversation. Today, we are welcoming Hannah Forsyth and Lisa Herzog. Hannah is an Australian historian of capitalism, […]
Politics has returned to Europe’s wealthy protectorates, which, after the phone-call on Jan. 20, 2025, between the then-President-elect and the Danish prime minister, suddenly find themselves faced with an open-ended era of shakedowns by its guardians and an unreliable big neighbor to the East. Neither its political class nor its aging, nostalgic population is prepared […]
The Australian parliament has legislated what’s commonly described as as “social media ban” for people under 16. More precisely, it will require selected social media platforms to implement (unspecified) age verification technology for people wishing to create accounts. This measure was rushed through at the end of last year, at the expense of proposed legislation […]
Inspired by Chris’s recent photo-blogging post, I thought I’d share a less well known little gem about (the original) Ravenna: not a byzantine church interior full of mosaics, but the submerged crypt of an early medieval Church (the Basilica of San Francesco), populated by goldfish (and the inevitable coins thrown in for good luck). Incidentally, […]
Recently I learned that at Yale University a “Report of the Committee on Institutional Voice” was published a few months ago. The committee was chaired by professors “Della Rocca & Rodríguez” and so hereafter, I refer to the report as “Della Rocca & Rodríguez.” According to an accompanying editorial by these two lead authors in the Yale News, The […]
I’ve already said all I plan to (for now) about what’s happening in the US. But if others want to discuss it, here’s an open thread.