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Fin de Siecle

The Dying Earth by Jack Vance Book Review

The Dying Earth [Amazon link] is not at all what I expected. I knew that Jack Vance had written about a decaying and declining Earth of the far future, when the Sun has swollen with ruddy light. What I got was a collection of loosely connected short stories and novellas

Clockmaker by Kristen Brand book review

Action-packed would be an understatement for Kristen Brand’s Clockmaker [Silver Empire affiliate link]. From the beginning, when a desperate and cash-strapped Captain Melek takes a job that she knows is too good to be true, the Sultana and her crew are flying, and fighting, for their lives. It has

The Long View: Staring into Chaos

You can't get a much better summary of the strengths of the early metahistorians than this: They suggest that basic science will be exhausted, though applied science will still have possibilities. They all expect that the vital elements in society will be increasingly religious, though a fossil secular

The Long View: Apocalypses: Prophecies, Cults and Millennial Beliefs through the Ages

Ignore doomsday at your peril. Apocalypses: Prophecies, Cults and Millennial Beliefs through the Ages by Eugen Weber Harvard University Press, 2000 294 pages, US$16.95 (Paperback) ISBN 0-674-00395-0 The University of Toronto asked Eugen Weber, the noted emeritus professor of modern European history at UCLA, to give the 1999

The Long View: The Demoralization of Society from Victorian Times to Modern Values

This book is probably best read in productive counter-point to Gregory Clark's A Farewell to Alms. It is not possible to understand the modern world without understanding both genetics and moral reform. Victorian England was the product of at least 1500 years of selection that made the most

The Long View: Woodrow Wilson: A Biography

Wilsonian is a term not often used to express admiration or approbation, but perhaps President Woodrow Wilson [Amazon link] deserves another look. This is a fine piece of mild historical revisionism, putting Wilson in historical context, something the man himself would appreciate. How many of us now remember that before

The Long View: Fascism: A History

Calling one's political opponent a fascist is still a popular political slur, but the actual occurrence of fascist ideas on the Right remains somewhat unclear. John was undubitably correct to note that the rise of popular parties on the right in Europe has mostly been tied to immigration,