In the 1940s and 1950s, liberalism betrayed itself. Whereas once it had offered an ambitious vision of human perfection, now it began to insist on man’s fallen nature. Rather than propose a bold account of historical progress, it warned that visions of a blissful tomorrow could justify bloody . . . . Continue Reading »
Judge Stephen P. Friot joins the podcast to discuss his new book Containing History: How Cold War History Explains US–Russia Relations. Continue Reading »
Another Kennan biography? The study of George Kennan—American diplomat, strategic mind, and architect of the “containment” doctrine that guided U.S. policy throughout the Cold War—is so persistent in academic and policy circles that it has become almost a sub-discipline in . . . . Continue Reading »
A secret government institution will always occupy an uncomfortable and uncertain place within an open society. In the United States, this tension has led to the creation of a parallel world in which secrecy is the norm and importance is measured by level of classification. This world both . . . . Continue Reading »
The West has adopted aspects of the old Kremlin mentality. Continue Reading »
Putin is conducting a carefully orchestrated campaign to reverse history’s verdict in the Cold War and subjugate the now-independent former “republics” of the old Soviet Union. Continue Reading »
Last December, while most of us were watching the presidential election lumber toward its disastrous conclusion, two aged representatives of a very different political era died. One of the deceased was David Cornwell, better known as John le Carré, the pen name he used while writing novels set in . . . . Continue Reading »
I find that most younger readers today, while recognizing Solzhenitsyn's name, have never read him. Continue Reading »
In the opening lines of Cold Warriors, Duncan White notes that “between February and May 1955, a group covertly funded by the Central Intelligence Agency launched a secret weapon into Communist territory”: balloons carrying copies of George Orwell’s Animal Farm. This was perhaps the . . . . Continue Reading »
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