To know how great powers end, one could do worse than study the last one that actually did. — Read on http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/russia-fsu/2020-06-30/how-great-power-falls-apart
Humans coexisted with three-tonne marsupials and lizards as long as cars in ancient Australia
When people first arrived in what is now Queensland, they would have found the land inhabited by massive animals including goannas six metres long and kangaroos twice as tall as a human. — Read on theconversation.com/humans-coexisted-with-three-tonne-marsupials-and-lizards-as-long-as-cars-in-ancient-australia-138534
Pandemic Recovery Requires Post-Normal Science | Issues in Science and Technology
In world-historical terms we also see periodic collapse and regeneration. A half-millennium of European economic and cultural expansion came to its end with the Great War. Its American extension has been brief, and the twin crises of the Great Recession of 2007–2008 and the coronavirus have now left the US heartland financially debilitated. The initial [...]
Stories of an extraordinary world – The internet, mon amour | The Economist
The coronavirus pandemic has driven many of us even further into the embrace of the internet. But can you live a truly fulfilled life online? — Read on http://www.economist.com/news/2020/06/19/the-internet-mon-amour
War Is Not Over | Foreign Affairs
... danger is all the more present in an era of populist leaders who disregard expert advice from diplomats, intelligence communities, and scholars in favor of sound bites. The long-term consequences of such behavior are likely to be profound. Repeated enough, the claim that war is in decline could become a self-defeating prophecy, as political [...]
Book Review: To Rule the Waves by Arthur Herman
Book review of Arthur Herman's To Rule the Waves, a narrative history of the rise of British Naval Power from the 15th to the 20th Century. To Rule the Waves tells the extraordinary story of how the British Royal Navy allowed one nation to rise to a level of power unprecedented in history. From the [...]
The Best Books on The Middle Ages | Five Books Expert Recommendations
Oxford medieval historian Hannah Skoda chooses her top five books on the Middle Ages, explaining why she finds the whole idea of their 'middleness' problematic and how a more global approach tends to shatter many long-held assumptions about the period. — Read on fivebooks.com/best-books/the-middle-ages-hannah-skoda/
We may not be able to leave the house, but these transporting books whisk us to Central Asia – The Washington Post
“Discovering Cyrus,” “The Road to Oxiana,” “The Nature of Alexander” and more. — Read on http://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/we-may-not-be-able-to-leave-the-house-but-these-transporting-books-whisk-us-to-central-asia/2020/05/20/722d2dc8-9944-11ea-89fd-28fb313d1886_story.html
The Great Elmore Leonard Renaissance of the Late ’90s | CrimeReads
During his reign as the preeminent king of American crime lit, the late Elmore Leonard was often described as “the most cinematic novelist in the English language.” It was a designation he seemed to encourage, once remarking “I’ve always seen my books as movies.” To be fair, the cinematic track record of Leonard adaptations is [...]
COVID-19 Environment – Are Pandemics Good for the Environment?
COVID-19 environment - An anthropologist looks at past disease outbreaks to consider how the COVID-19 crisis may—or may not—benefit the environment. — Read on http://www.sapiens.org/archaeology/covid-19-environment/
