[I]n the sack of Athens the Goths had collected all the libraries, and were on the point of setting fire to this funeral pile of Grecian learning, had not one of their chiefs, of more refined policy than his brethren, dissuaded them from the design; by the profound observation, that as long as the Greeks were addicted to the study of books, they would never apply themselves to the exercise of arms. The sagacious counsellor (should the truth of the fact be admitted) reasoned like an ignorant barbarian. In the most polite and powerful nations, genius of every kind has displayed itself about the same period; and the age of science has generally been the age of military virtue and success.

(more…)

Today is the 92nd anniversary of the end of the end of Western civilization and of the flower of her youth. May the King of Justice render to those men honor for their courage, recompense for their pain and despair, and forgiveness for their many faults.

Reading in Ether recently, I noticed how peculiar their society was. (more…)

I’m reading 1861, by Adam Goodheart. It is an illuminating and affecting scholarly popular history of the first year of the war. The chapter on Ellsworth is particularly fine. (more…)

Richard Overy missed it.   (more…)

Via Hugh Hewitt: (more…)

This will leave a mark. (more…)