History

I once found it difficult to relate to the excitement travelers expressed at walking the same streets their heroes did centuries earlier. Not so after walking through cities where a hero of mine revolutionized art and science.

The fundamental cause of the atrocity on 9/11 was acceptance of faith as a means of knowledge. This cause set all of the other, derivative causes in motion.

Comedy can be a powerful medium for expressing important ideas, and Armando Iannucci’s The Death of Stalin is a standout example.

More than any of his contemporaries, Sargent expressed the glamour that emerging capitalism made possible. Yet that is just what made him incomprehensible or unacceptable to later artists and critics.

Across Britain, Isambard Kingdom Brunel’s innovations stand as triumphant monuments to his genius—and likely will for centuries to come.

If you appreciate man at his best, read this book. You’ll not only enjoy heroes more deeply, you’ll be better equipped to emulate them, too.

By burning and pillaging the property of their fellow citizens, rioters spit on the progress their forbears achieved under far worse circumstances.

At the height of the Nazi reign of terror, a group of idealistic young Germans rose to challenge Hitler’s regime. In reference to the moral purity of their cause, they dubbed themselves the “White Rose.”

Although the Wisconsin Supreme Court’s ruling is a partial victory for freedom, it falls short of making a principled stand for individual rights.

The first in a two-part series on the country’s fundamental ideas, America’s Revolutionary Mind is not a narrative of events but a systematic re-creation of the philosophy that led colonists to, in the words of Thomas Paine, “begin the world over again.”