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The Long View

The Long View 2008-06-04: Toward the Courts of the Crimson Kings

This review of In the Courts of the Crimson Kings [Amazon link] is a great excuse for John J. Reilly to indulge in his hobby of metahistory, the way that cultures have a tendency to follow cyclical patterns of development over centuries. The book is fun, and John’s digressions

The Long View: The Sky People by S. M. Stirling

Reader Duane Oldsen requested John J. Reilly’s reviews of S. M. Stirling’s The Sky People [Amazon link] and In the Courts of the Crimson Kings [Amazon link]. I’m happy to oblige, even though these reviews were written by John in 2008, which is a little ahead of

The Long View: The Nomos of the Earth

Among the few who know who he is, Carl Schmitt doesn’t have a good name, since he had the temerity to provide intellectual justification for the Nazis. However, it would be a mistake to dismiss Schmitt, as this book review offers a cogent explanation of how the world got

The Long View: God and Gold: Britain, America, and the Making of the Modern World

This is a fascinating book review twelve years later, as one of the major themes of John J. Reilly’s review of Walter Russell Mean’s God and Gold [Amazon link] is the durability of the maritime order, the geopolitical dominance of free trade and free thinking that got started

The Long View 2007-09-07: Catholic Reformation; The Bottom Billion; Fortress Switzerland; Malingering Dinosaurs

Damian Thompson has had an interesting career. He has written on conspiracy theories, the Latin Mass, and apocalyptic beliefs. I don’t recall this blog post specifically, but I do remember reading Counterknowledge [Amazon link] in 2008. Catholic Reformation; The Bottom Billion; Fortress Switzerland; Malingering Dinosaurs I spoke to Damian

The Long View 2007-09-05: Eureka; Babyboomski; Chambers Initiative; The Deal to Save Iraq

Demography is always more mysterious, and the data messier, than the models that get used often imply. In this post, John looks at early signs that Russian demographics were exiting the death spiral state of more deaths than births in 2007. The absolute difference wouldn’t cross zero for another

The Long View 2007-08-30: Anarchy! Orthography! Liturgy!

A bit of a return to current events commentary here. An item of interest is the response of the Patriarch of Moscow commenting on the motu proprio of Benedict XVI allowing greater freedom to celebrate the Latin mass. If you think the Second Vatican Council roiled Catholicism, you should see