With Both Hands

Sign in Subscribe

History

Cold War Rocket Science

As an engineer, I don't really find it all that mysterious how Eisenhower's military-industrial complex got started. The Cold War meant that enormous sums were spent on secret projects far beyond the cutting edge of technology. It was a great time to be an engineer. Maybe

New Tim Powers book coming March 2012

Hide Me Among the GravesTim Power's newest novel, Hide Me Among the Graves, will be coming March 2012. This is sort of a sequel to The Stress of Her Regard , a tale of vampryic muses in the lives of Byron, Keats, and Shelley, based on actual events in

Historical Quotation

Via Jimmy Akin It's 346 B.C. and King Philip II of Macedon (father of Alexander the Great) has just subjugated a bunch of Greek city-states. He then approaches Sparta and sends them a message: "You are advised to submit without further delay, for if I bring

Catholicism: A Journey to the Heart of the Faith Book Review

By Fr. Robert Barron $27.99; 291 pages I received this book for free as part of the Early Reviewers book program at LibraryThing.com. I haven't seen the documentary that this book is intended to be a complement to. [and prepostitions aren't what you end

The Copiale Cipher

In an oft-cited letter in 1947 to the mathematician Norbert Wiener, he wrote: “One naturally wonders if the problem of translation could conceivably be treated as a problem in cryptography. When I look at an article in Russian, I say: ‘This is really written in English, but it has been

Gandhi

Over Labor Day weekend, I came across Richard Grenier's excessively long review of Gandhi, starring Ben Kingsley. I thought of it again because of my recent post on the connections between nationalism, democracy, and ethnic cleansing. Which is pretty much the price India and Pakistan paid for independence

The Price of Democracy

The Price of Democracy

For many of us, democracy is seen as an unalloyed good, the only conceivable form of government. However, history tells us that all forms of government have their day, until they are swept away when their characteristic excesses become unbearable. Ross Douthat reminds us that democracy and nationalism are a