Essay Should an old man engage in politics? April 07, 2020 Around noon on March 5, 2020, Elizabeth Warren suspended her campaign for president of the United States, leaving Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders to run (essentially) a two-man race for the Democratic nomination. Read More
Essay Beware the Ides of March March 13, 2020 Imagine a rogue general, assigned only to guard the frontiers of his country’s remote provinces – but the authorities back in the capital tacitly approve of some adventurism. He goes on a rampage through neighboring territories, allying himself with certain ethnic groups in the region against others. Read More
Essay A leadership class from the ancient world March 03, 2020 For the ancient Greeks and Romans, leadership was studied through examples. One of the best books ever written on the subject, Xenophon’s Education of Cyrus, appears to be a biography of the Persian king Cyrus the Great. In fact, it is a manual of statecraft and strategy. Read More
Essay Philip Freeman on Cicero, Star Wars, and the Stoic Idea of God December 13, 2019 Ancient Rome was a wildly diverse and exotic place. As I tell the students in my college classes, if you want to get a feel for what Rome was like, watch Star Wars. Read More
Interview Walter Scheidel on Escape from Rome October 22, 2019 The fall of the Roman Empire has long been considered one of the greatest disasters in history. But in this groundbreaking book, Walter Scheidel argues that Rome’s dramatic collapse was actually the best thing that ever happened, clearing the path for Europe’s economic rise and the creation of the modern age. Read More
Interview Radcliffe Edmonds on Drawing Down the Moon September 12, 2019 What did magic mean to the people of ancient Greece and Rome? How did Greeks and Romans not only imagine what magic could do, but also use it to try to influence the world around them? Read More
Essay Adrienne Mayor on Inspiring Women Writers March 04, 2019 Adrienne Mayor is the author of Gods and Robots, the fascinating untold story of how the ancients imagined robots and other forms of artificial life—and even invented real automated machines. Read More
Interview François-Xavier Fauvelle on The Golden Rhinoceros November 09, 2018 From the birth of Islam in the seventh century to the voyages of European exploration in the fifteenth, Africa was at the center of a vibrant exchange of goods and ideas. Read More
