Portier-Young notes that during the Ptolemaic domination of Palesting, “some families were taken captive and enslaved.” She cites Hengel, who claims that the slave trade flourished under the Ptolemies. Josephus claims that “soldiers sold slaves independently of imperial policy as . . . . Continue Reading »
Foucault, from Discipline and Punish : “The more on possesses power or privilege [in the premodern world], the more one is marked as an individual, by rituals, written accounts or visual reproductions. The ‘name’ and the genealogy that situate one within a kinship group, the . . . . Continue Reading »
In a post several years ago ( http://www.leithart.com/archives/002185.php ) I summarized Foucault’s thoughts on the “architecture of control. It didn’t occur to me at the time that there are intriguing similarities between the process that Foucault describes and the organization . . . . Continue Reading »
The redoubtable Bruno Latour begins his Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network-Theory (Clarendon Lectures in Management Studies) with a statement of his thesis that “social” does not describe a substance or an “ingredient” that can serve as an explanation . . . . Continue Reading »
In a 1995 article, Lance Janda argues that the US applied a policy of “total war” during the Civil War, and later used the same methods in the Indian wars: “if ‘total war. is defined as using ‘military force against the civilian population of the enemy,’ then the . . . . Continue Reading »
A few entries from the 1899 ABCs for Baby Patriots . C is for colonies Rightly we boast, That of all the great nations Great Britain has the most. D is for daring We show in the field Which makes every enemy Vanish or yield. E is for empire Where sun never sets; The larger we make it The bigger it . . . . Continue Reading »
Burke and others warned that the British war with the American colonies was unwinnable. “The Ocean remains” was Burke’s argument, and “you cannot pump it dry.” Why fight? In a “Memorandum” written in 1778 and published in 1932, Adam Smith explained that it . . . . Continue Reading »
In an essay in Stephen Greenblatt’s New World Encounters (Representations Books, 6) , Frank Lestringant examines the work of Huguenot adventurer Jean de Lery, whose Histoire d’un voyage faict en la terre du Bresil (1578) influenced Locke, Bayle, Diderot, and Rousseau and was, in . . . . Continue Reading »
On the fourth Sunday of Advent, 1511, a Dominican friar, Antonio de Montesinos, preached a sermon to the Spanish colonists in the main church of Santo Domingo. Bartolome de Las Casas was in the congregation that day, and the rest, as the say, is history. Here’s the central portion of that . . . . Continue Reading »
Prof. John Nugent has published a detailed “Yoderian rejoinder” to my Defending Constantine here: http://erb.kingdomnow.org/featured-a-yoderian-rejoinder-to-leitharts-defending-constantine-vol-3-46/ My response will be published there, but for those who can’t wait I offer it here. . . . . Continue Reading »
Subscribe
Latest Issue
Support First Things
