Last Week This Week 9-25-16

Wrath /ræθ/ noun

            1
:  strong vengeful anger or indignation
 (chiefly used for humorous or rhetorical effect)

            2
:  retributory punishment for an offense or a crime: divine chastisement
        

On WBT

David's review of Mark Thompson's The White War and the particular stupidity of the Italian front in World War One.

With the murders of unarmed black men by police happening over and over and over, with no apparent consequences, it's time to revisit Matt's Letter to America from one year ago, which specifically addresses the murder of young boy Tamir Rice, but is sadly still relevant.

Editor’s Recommendations

American Politics

Whatever your views on Barack Obama, it is hard to argue that he has been one of our most dignified, thoughtful, and well-read presidents. This interview with the historian Doris Kearns Goodwin shows why.

Yet another metaphor for the Donald Trump rolling fiasco: it's like a low-brow piece of punk rock-inspired performance art.

World Politics

Professor Timothy Snyder writes about the long-dead Russian fascist ideologue who provides Vladimir Putin's favorite bedtime reading, and how this relates to the undermining of democracy around the world as Putin's main aim. This involves Trump, obviously.

Alex Tabbarok in The Atlantic makes the strong case for the moral failure of the current system of closed international borders.

War and Art

According to Bryan Doerries, the founder of Theatre of War, Greek tragedies "Don't mean anything. They do something." Is he right? Should returning veterans privilege the emotional over the intellectual?

Free Speech

David Bromwich with an illuminating, original and exhaustive take on the problem of innocence and censorship (a topic often discussed at WBT).