Contra pusillanimitatem saeculorum

There is a scene in the movie Of God and Men, in which an official of the crypto-fascist Algerian government blames the then-current Islamist terrorism on, you guessed it, France.  None of this would be happening, he said, had it not been for colonialism.  I don't know if this is a true recounting of the meeting - ( Read more... )

The Interchangeable, Suburban Men

John Lukacs wrote in The Passing of the Modern Age (1970):

Except for two republics [France and Switzerland] as late as 1910 every European state was still a monarchy, but the actual political power of the monarchs was dwindling everywhere....

Of course it is very often true that officials of a central government, ( Read more... )

The Disappearance of SF

Kirkus Reviews has revealed the Best SF of 2010.  I am sure that all the books they list are very good, but I was interested to note the virtual absence of SF from the list.  As near as I can tell only two of the fifteen books are SFnal, and there is something very borderline about the last one.

How much of this is due ( Read more... )

"Many of the conclusions that were drawn from the old account are still around, but the basis they stood on has vanished."

One of the characteristics of the Modern Age that has recently ended was that it was the Age of Science.  But this must be understood.  It was the Age of a Particular Kind of Science.  In the broader sense, Science covers a ( Read more... )