Reprising this post from when I enjoyed George Selgin’s Good Money: Birmingham Button Makers, the Royal Mint, and the Beginnings of Modern Coinage, 1775-1821 (University of Michigan Press, 2008). Come the Industrial Revolution, the number of wage earners rose dramatically, increasing dramatically the need for small denomination coins to pay them and for them to […]
Private coins and the Industrial Revolution Read More »
Reprising this earlier post about Only a God Can Save Us, and my 40-minute interview with van Davis about his documentary on philosopher Martin Heidegger’s involvement with National Socialism: Part 1: Part 2 is here: See also Chapter Three of Explaining Postmodernism. Related:
Interview with director Jeffrey van Davis on Heidegger and Nazism Read More »
Join The Atlas Society for a special webinar discussion with Senior Scholar Stephen Hicks and Senior Fellow Robert Tracinski on Wednesday, March 15 @ 2 PM PT / 5 PM ET, when the duo will discuss the philosophy of history and take up the questions: What causes historical change? What’s the role of ideas, knowledge institutions, or
Philosophy of History with Stephen Hicks & Robert Tracinski (coming Mar. 15) Read More »
Refreshing this quotation from Zeev Sternhell’s The Anti-Enlightenment Tradition (Yale University Press, 2010), a scholarly study of the most disturbing intellectual trend of the modern world — the ongoing lineage of intellectuals opposed to the Enlightenment tradition of reason, naturalism, individualism, and freedom. Along the way Sternhell asks, of Nietzsche’s place in the trend, an
Zeev Sternhell on the Nazis’ pillaging of Nietzsche Read More »
An Artist’s View: Michael Newberry on Key Works of Art in History Michael Newberry is a California-based artist who has exhibited across Europe and North America. He is the author of books on color theory, philosophy of art, modernism and postmodernism in art, and art history. We invited him into our studio for this series
“Geometric Warrior,” 8th century BCE [Newberry on Great Art series] Read More »
Reprising this open letter Douglass wrote in 1848 to Thomas Auld, his former master, on the tenth anniversary of his escape from slavery to freedom. TO MY OLD MASTER. Thomas Auld, Sir: The long and intimate, though by no means friendly, relation which unhappily subsisted between you and myself, leads me to hope that you
Frederick Douglass’s letter to his former master Read More »
Reprising this series of quotations, collected over the years, on the theme of pessimism about the present in relation to the past: Plato, 360 BCE: “In that country [Egypt] arithmetical games have been invented for the use of mere children, which they learn as pleasure and amusement. I have late in life heard with amazement
The constant decline of civilization? Read More »
Reprising this post about the early death of Franz Schubert, the great lyrical composer of the early nineteenth century. He died at age 31. While his music is usually too melancholy for my taste, what a sadness. Franz was lucky to get that many years. Biographer Christoper Gibbs reports that Schubert’s parents had fourteen children
Franz Schubert’s early death Read More »