Stefan McDaniel

It is my privilege to share workspace with a soon-to-be-distinguished student of history , Ryan Sayre “Prayers” Patrico. Like other advocates of civilization, Ryan is shocked and dismayed by the almost total ignorance of history among young Americans. The only consolation I can offer . . . . Continue Reading »

I hated Jack Kerouac’s On The Road when I read it in my early teens. I expected a carefree romp that would glamorize and endorse antinomian adventures such as I hoped to have. Instead I found a disorienting and melancholy book—all hangover and no high. In ” The End of the Road . . . . Continue Reading »

I’m a twenty-two year old with a job and a few considered opinions, but it is arguably unwise to let me vote. To grant the suffrage to the demographic that enriched Britney Spears is to court disaster. . . . . Continue Reading »

No one should trivialize the current economic crisis, which poses a real threat to the well-being of people around the world. But “crisis” quickly moves from being an unpleasant fact that we must face to a poisonous climate of anxiety that we breathe. In order to maintain perspective, . . . . Continue Reading »

As hot as the culture war can burn, things rarely threaten to get physical. But this past Saturday, South Carolina experienced a brief but violent tremor along a national fault-line when cadets at the Citadel (a military academy in South Carolina) attacked the Princeton University Band before a . . . . Continue Reading »

Many Baby Boomers have noted that, from an intellectual point of view, the American national response to Islamic radicalism has been shockingly sluggish and uninspired, especially as compared with the vast mobilization of the Cold War. After the Sputnik embarrassment, for instance, the entire math . . . . Continue Reading »

I’m reading A Brief History of the Normans by François Neveux. So far it’s quite informative and readable, but the author, apparently following current scholarly fashion, insists on referring to the medieval expeditions of the Northmen as “migrations.” For, you . . . . Continue Reading »

In theory this Thames Flyer thing is pretty appealing. What red-blooded male doesn’t want the “James Bond” experience of going wicked fast up the Thames while sipping elegantly on expensive champagne? But then, in a lame attempt to justify the ridiculous fee of six hundred pounds . . . . Continue Reading »

Britain’s House of Lords expelled most of its hereditary lords in 1999. This may well have been a very good thing on balance, but as The Economist shows , it did have the regrettable effect of making regions outside of London “more marginalized than ever.” Those old dukes may have . . . . Continue Reading »

It is good to be skeptical of Sen. Obama’s promise to lead this country beyond the “old divisions,” as though the fierce partisanship of, say, the Culture Wars were fueled by pure spite. As many commentators have said, this “beyondism” is itself just another partisan . . . . Continue Reading »