The Worthy House

American History, Book Reviews, Charles, Conservatism, Great Fragmentation, Left-Liberalism, Political Discussion & Analysis, Popular, Post-Liberalism, Social Justice Warriors, Wars To Come

On the “Dark Enlightenment,” and of Curtis Yarvin / Mencius Moldbug

Published by Charles

My project here is to analyze, in the detail required for all necessary understanding, the thought of Curtis Yarvin, who wrote under the pseudonym Mencius Moldbug. Yarvin is the...

June 27, 2018

comments 23

American History, Analysis, Atheism, Charles, Conservatism, Ethnography, Great Fragmentation, Left-Liberalism, Political Discussion & Analysis, Popular, Post-Liberalism

Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup (John Carreyrou)

Published by Charles

While pretty much everyone in this book who is rich and powerful comes off looking bad, it is less a tale of typical fraud, like a Ponzi scheme, and...

May 24, 2018

Book Reviews, Business & Money, Charles, Law, Popular, Science, Technology

The Power of the Powerless (Václav Havel)

Published by Charles

This book was once famous, but was mostly forgotten when Communism died and so-called liberal democracy seemed ascendant. It is increasingly famous again, and relevant, in these days of...

May 18, 2018

Book Reviews, Charles, Communism, Conservatism, Eastern European History, European History, Left-Liberalism, Political Discussion & Analysis, Popular, Post-Liberalism, Social Behavior, Social Justice Warriors, Wars To Come

Suicide of the West: How the Rebirth of Tribalism, Populism, Nationalism, and Identity Politics is Destroying American Democracy (Jonah Goldberg)

Published by Charles

I think this book is meant as a #NeverTrumper manifesto, an attempt to create intellectual backbone for that wispy band of conservative holdouts, who crouch behind the crenellations in...

May 2, 2018

comments 10

American History, Book Reviews, Charles, Conservatism, Great Fragmentation, Political Discussion & Analysis, Popular, Post-Liberalism

The Revolt of the Masses (José Ortega y Gasset)

Published by Charles

Oh, but this is a fascinating book. Written in 1930 by the Spanish philosopher José Ortega y Gasset, it is one of those books that is occasionally mentioned, especially...

March 24, 2018

comments 6

Book Reviews, Charles, European History, Political Discussion & Analysis, Popular, Social Behavior

Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress (Steven Pinker)

Published by Charles

As with Steven Pinker’s earlier The Better Angels of Our Nature, of which this is really an expansion and elucidation, I was frustrated by this book. On the one...

February 16, 2018

Book Reviews, Charles, Great Divergence, Left-Liberalism, Political Economy, Popular, Social Behavior, Technology

Why Liberalism Failed (Patrick J. Deneen)

Published by Charles

Poor Francis Fukuyama. He has been a punching bag ever since he unwisely declared the End of History, more than twenty-five years ago. Fukuyama, of course, meant that the...

December 19, 2017

comments 14

American History, Book Reviews, Charles, Great Fragmentation, Left-Liberalism, Political Discussion & Analysis, Popular, Post-Liberalism, Wars To Come

The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America (Richard Rothstein)

Published by Charles

Some years ago, I lived for a time in Oak Park, Illinois. Oak Park has for decades been filled with rich white liberals, who live just across the street...

August 15, 2017

Administrative State, Book Reviews, Charles, Ethnography, Law, Left-Liberalism, Political Discussion & Analysis, Political Economy, Popular, Social Behavior

All men dream, but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds, wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act on their dreams with open eyes, to make them possible.
T. E. Lawrence

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The Saxon Savior: The Germanic Transformation of the Gospel in the Ninth-Century Heliand (G. Ronald Murphy)

Published by Charles

Immediately before the Ascension, the last command of Christ to the Apostles was to “make disciples of all nations.” Ever since, at least until very recently, proselytizing has been...

July 5, 2020

comments 0

Book Reviews, Charles, Christian History, Christian Theology, European History, Medieval History, Religion

The Moral Basis of a Backward Society (Edward C. Banfield)

Published by Charles

Most cultures throughout history have been terrible. The natural state of so-called civilized man is somewhere between today’s Venezuela and today’s Somalia. Large-scale success, exceptions to the general rule,...

June 27, 2020

Book Reviews, Charles, Ethnography, European History, Great Divergence, Social Behavior

When Money Dies: The Nightmare of Deficit Spending, Devaluation, and Hyperinflation in Weimar Germany (Adam Fergusson)

Published by Charles

Inflation, like most society-wide monetary happenings, is always complex and often incompletely grasped. At least this is true of its causes; of its effects, most of all its social...

June 15, 2020

comment 1

Book Reviews, Charles, Economics, European History, Political Economy, Social Behavior

Against Masks

Published by Charles

The great social argument of this instant is whether everyone should now, because of the Wuhan Plague, be required to wear face masks, and if so, under what circumstances....

May 28, 2020

comments 34

Analysis, Charles, Life Advice, Political Discussion & Analysis, Popular, Social Behavior

SAM: One Robot, a Dozen Engineers, and the Race to Revolutionize the Way We Build (Jonathan Waldman)

Published by Charles

The classic American path to technological success has been for driven tinkerers to obsessively work to solve a problem, from Eli Whitney to Thomas Edison to Steve Jobs. Such...

May 23, 2020

comments 6

Art & Architecture & Building, Book Reviews, Charles, Practical Skills, Technology

Starship Troopers (Robert Heinlein)

Published by Charles

Starship Troopers, sixty years old, is a famous work of science fiction. As with most Robert Heinlein novels, the point is more the ideas than plot or character. Heinlein...

May 12, 2020

Book Reviews, Charles, Fiction, Political Discussion & Analysis, Post-Liberalism, Science Fiction & Fantasy, Sex Roles, Social Behavior, War

Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief (Lawrence Wright)

Published by Charles

We all know religious devotion has declined precipitously in America. Most of what religion remains is Moralistic Therapeutic Deism, which is the sherbet of religions, an unsatisfying imitation of...

May 4, 2020

Atheism, Book Reviews, Charles, Foundationalism, Religion

Lord of All the Dead (Javier Cercas)

Published by Charles

Years ago, I lived in Budapest with an elderly Hungarian relative, my grandfather’s cousin. She had lived through World War II as a young woman. One day, as we...

April 22, 2020

Biography & Autobiography, Book Reviews, Charles, Civil War, Communism, European History, Military History, Political Discussion & Analysis, Post-Liberalism, Social Behavior, War, Wars To Come

Mine Were of Trouble (Peter Kemp)

Published by Charles

Among the many tools of the superbly effective Left propaganda machine, one of the most effective is its control of publishing. Leftists use this to ensure that innumerable books...

April 13, 2020

comment 1

Biography & Autobiography, Book Reviews, Charles, Civil War, European History, Military History, War, Wars To Come

The Apple and the Arrow (Mary and Conrad Buff)

Published by Charles

Do any American children learn about William Tell today? Do any Swiss children learn about him? Very few, if any, I suspect. My children do, but only because last...

April 6, 2020

comments 12

Book Reviews, Charles, Children, European History, Fiction, Medieval History, Military History, Political Discussion & Analysis, Post-Liberalism, Sex Roles, Social Behavior, Wars To Come

The Decadent Society: How We Became a Victim of Our Own Success (Ross Douthat)

Published by Charles

Almost always one reads a book of future-looking political theory long before or long after its substance has been proven or disproven. It is quite another experience to observe...

March 28, 2020

comments 7

Apocalypse, Book Reviews, Charles, Left-Liberalism, Political Discussion & Analysis, Post-Liberalism, Social Behavior

Great Society: A New History (Amity Shlaes)

Published by Charles

A few weeks ago, I watched Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, and Quentin Tarantino’s movie delivered to me what I have been seeking. Namely, the exact point America...

March 16, 2020

comments 3

American History, Book Reviews, Charles, Foundationalism, Left-Liberalism, Political Discussion & Analysis, Post-Liberalism

The Throne of Adulis: Red Sea Wars on the Eve of Islam (G. W. Bowersock)

Published by Charles

When we think of Late Antiquity, we usually think of Rome, either its decline in the West or its continuation in the East. When we are feeling particularly adventurous,...

March 9, 2020

comments 3

Book Reviews, Charles, Christian History, Classical History, Islam & The Islamic World, Military History, The Orient, War

Lee Kuan Yew: The Grand Master’s Insights on China, the United States, and the World (Graham Allison)

Published by Charles

For Americans who think that so-called liberal democracy is neither, and in any case is a dead end, successful modern societies with a different political model always intrigue. In...

February 9, 2020

comments 12

Biography & Autobiography, Book Reviews, Charles, Ethnography, Great Divergence, Political Discussion & Analysis, Political Economy, Post-Liberalism, The Orient

The Beekeeper’s Lament: How One Man and Half a Billion Honey Bees Help Feed America (Hannah Nordhaus)

Published by Charles

As befits one who seeks to be a man of wealth and taste (if I have to choose between them, the former), I aspire to live on a vast...

January 27, 2020

Book Reviews, Business & Money, Charles, Gardening & Farming, Political Economy, Practical Skills

The Accursed Tower: The Fall of Acre and the End of the Crusades (Roger Crowley)

Published by Charles

I often say that the Crusades were a high point of Western civilization. And they were, but they were also an example of flawed glory. Certainly, the goal of...

January 24, 2020

comments 9

Book Reviews, Charles, Christian History, European History, Islam & The Islamic World, Medieval History, Military History, The Orient, War

Nemesis: Alcibiades and the Fall of Athens (David Stuttard)

Published by Charles

We live in an age lacking dynamic leadership. We are instead led, if one can call it that, by men who are clowns, feminized, or confused—or, often, by confused...

January 14, 2020

comments 13

Biography & Autobiography, Book Reviews, Charles, Classical History, Political Discussion & Analysis, Social Behavior, War, Wars To Come

Ages of Discord: A Structural-Demographic Analysis of American History (Peter Turchin)

Published by Charles

I am skeptical of those who predict the future by looking at the past. It’s not that history follows a random walk, like the stock market. Quite the contrary—it...

January 10, 2020

American History, Book Reviews, Civil War, Economics, Longitudinal History, Political Discussion & Analysis, Political Economy, Social Behavior, Wars To Come

Only Yesterday: An Informal History of the 1920s (Frederick Lewis Allen)

Published by Charles

Much modern popular history is mendacious, written with an ideological agenda that deliberately distorts, or omits, or simply lies about, the truth. Sometimes, therefore, reading history written in the...

January 8, 2020

American History, Book Reviews, Charles, Left-Liberalism, Social Behavior

The Value of Everything: Making and Taking in the Global Economy (Mariana Mazzucato)

Published by Charles

I have long known in my gut that usual measures of social wealth, most of all GDP, are fraudulent, in that they falsely identify value where there is none....

January 6, 2020

comments 6

American History, Book Reviews, Business & Money, Charles, Economics, Political Economy

The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time (Karl Polanyi)

Published by Charles

The Great Transformation, published in 1944, is an ambitious book. It attempts two huge tasks. First, to refute the free market ideology, sometimes called market fundamentalism, represented at that...

December 26, 2019

Book Reviews, British History, Business & Money, Charles, Economics, European History, Political Economy, Social Behavior

Sea People: The Puzzle of Polynesia (Christina Thompson)

Published by Charles

Interest in Polynesia is not much in fashion nowadays, except for using the islands as an exemplar of the claimed, always imminent yet never arriving, effects of global warming....

December 17, 2019

comments 0

Book Reviews, Charles, Ethnography, Primitive Cultures, Science

A Time to Die: Monks on the Threshold of Eternal Life (Nicolas Diat)

Published by Charles

A Time to Die is a small gem of a book which works on two levels. On one level, it is a self-examination for the reader, offering him a...

December 12, 2019

comments 0

Book Reviews, Charles, Christian History, European History, Religion

Bullshit Jobs: A Theory (David Graeber)

Published by Charles

I am trying to understand how human beings create value through their actions, and what that implies for humanity. Although this goal is hardly original, and has occupied much...

December 10, 2019

comments 18

Book Reviews, Business & Money, Charles, Economics, Foundationalism, Political Economy, Social Behavior

The Captive Mind (Czeslaw Milosz)

Published by Charles

We all like to imagine ourselves as heroes. We watch movies, and we instinctively put ourselves in the place of the hero, not in the place of the villain....

December 5, 2019

Book Reviews, Charles, Communism, Eastern European History, European History, Political Discussion & Analysis, Post-Liberalism, Social Behavior, Social Justice Warriors, Wars To Come

Frederick the Second: Wonder of the World 1194-1250 (Ernst Kantorowicz)

Published by Charles

This book defies easy characterization. It is, to be sure, a biography of the last of the great German medieval emperors, Frederick II Hohenstaufen. But it vibrates with a...

November 19, 2019

Biography & Autobiography, Book Reviews, Charles, Christian History, European History, Medieval History, Political Discussion & Analysis

The World Beyond Your Head: On Becoming an Individual in an Age of Distraction (Matthew B. Crawford)

Published by Charles

Attacks on digital technology for destroying our capacity for attention are a dime a dozen. Despite its title, Matthew Crawford’s The World Beyond Your Head is not such an...

November 14, 2019

Book Reviews, Charles, Life Advice, Political Economy, Post-Liberalism, Practical Skills, Social Behavior

The Great Leveler: Violence and the History of Inequality from the Stone Age to the Twenty-First Century (Walter Scheidel)

Published by Charles

Economic inequality is, and has been for several years now, the talk of the town. But most of this talk is political—of economic goods today, and whether and how...

November 11, 2019

comments 12

Book Reviews, Charles, Longitudinal History, Political Economy, War

Return of the Strong Gods: Nationalism, Populism, and the Future of the West (R. R. Reno)

Published by Charles

Rusty Reno, editor of the prominent religious conservative journal First Things, here couples an original diagnosis of how we got to the vicious decay of now with very muted...

October 25, 2019

Book Reviews, Charles, Conservatism, Great Fragmentation, Left-Liberalism, Political Discussion & Analysis, Post-Liberalism, Social Behavior, Wars To Come

Alexander the Great: His Life and His Mysterious Death (Anthony Everitt)

Published by Charles

Different eras view Alexander III of Macedon differently. Though always honored as a hugely successful military leader and conqueror, in the ancient world, he got mixed press, seen as...

October 19, 2019