With Both Hands

Sign in Subscribe

History

The Long View 2003-11-03: Dubious Trends

You can make your own conclusions regarding these trends twelve years later. Dubious Trends About 15 years ago, I wasted the time of the senior executives of a major law-publisher I worked for with memos insisting that they absolutely had to start a newsletter dealing with the regulatory implications of

The Long View: At the End of an Age

This book review of John Reilly's is the source of one of my favorite quotes: How do we know that the 500 or so years of the Modern Age are at last drawing to a close? Lukacs's answer to this, and it's a good

The Long View: For Want of a Nail

Another counterfactual history, but this time one meant as entertainment. I haven't read this book, but I may get around to it at some point. “I care only if it is effective on the page. I agree with the late Ernest Newman: a great score is more finely

The Long View: A New Dynasty

This is a fine essay of alternative history by John Reilly, regarding an early twentieth century China in which someone managed to cobble together enough Confucian orthodoxy to proclaim themselves Emperor, of a sort, sparing China Chairman Mao and the Cultural Revolution. In a fascinating aside, John gets at what

Rule by Coup

I saw a comment on Reddit relating the story of an attempted coup by a Japanese officer to prevent Emperor Hirohito from surrendering after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It was interesting enough to reproduce here, in full. Interesting little story, an 8mm Nambu almost destroyed the earth.

Hope Reborn and Conqueror Book Review

Hope Reborn by David Drake and S. M. Stirling Contains the Forge and the Hammer Baen Publishing Enterprises, 2013 586 Pages, US$13.00 ISBN 978-1-4516-3877-6 Conqueror by David Drake and S. M. Stirling Contains the Anvil, the Steel, and the Sword Baen Publishing Enterprises, 2003 633 Pages, US$25.

The Long View: Spengler's Future

When I did the site upgrade, John's online book, Spengler's Future, got jumbled up because I had it hosted on separate pages. I rolled everything up into one page, and added it to the navigation bar. Spengler's Future was an interesting exercise, a book