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The Long View

The Long View: Marcus Aurelius: A Life

Another Roman history lesson, courtesy of Frank McLynn's biography of Marcus Aurelius. I have been slowly re-reading [for probably the twentieth time] G. K. Chesterton's The Everlasting Man, and I also find Chesterton's description of Classical Rome strikingly allusive. For Eastern Christians, the Roman

The Comtemplative Life

I'm going to break from my chronological reposting of John J. Reilly's The Long View for a bit, because I read a fascinating book review on SlateStarCodex, BOOK REVIEW: MASTERING THE CORE TEACHINGS OF THE BUDDHA. I noticed that Scott Alexander's review was oddly

The Long View: Augustine: A Biography

I don't have much to add to this fine book review of a biography of St. Augustine, other than to highlight this: John of Eclanum Augustine: A Biography By Peter Brown University of California Press, 2000 Originally Published 1967 548 Pages, Various Prices ISBN 0-520-22757-3 A Review By

The Long View 2005-11-05: Happy Guy Fawkes Day

I've always found the co-option of Guy Fawkes, Catholic terrorist, by anarchists to be a bit funny. If there is any religion that is absolutely incompatible with that philosophy, it Catholic Christianity. Happy Guy Fawkes Day Readers of The Screwtape Letters will recall that infernal bureaucrat Screwtape once

The Long View 2005-11-03: Taxes, Techno-Libs, Intifada

The same basic plan for fixing the US Federal tax system keeps coming up: get rid of deductions, and make the rates lower so the change is revenue neutral. And, it will always never happen, because far too many voters and donors have lots of long-term economic decisions made with

The Long View: The Menace of Multiculturalism in America

Seeing this book had a foreword by Dinesh D'Souza, who has descended into hackery in the twenty years since this review was written, made me think of the fantastic Twitter exchange above. The book John reviews here isn't very good, but his discussion of the issues

The Long View 2005-10-30: Libby, Noonan, & Scalia

John was broadly on the same side as Antonin Scalia on most subjects, but he didn't think textualism was accurate in the American legal system. Libby, Noonan, & Scalia The interesting point about the indictment of Lewis Libby is the political nature of the process. This is not