“Although it does not accord with the general sentiments or views of the United States to intermeddle [sic] in the domestic contests of other countries, it cannot be unfair, in the prosecution of a just war, or the accomplishment of a reasonable peace, to turn to their advantage, the enmity and pretensions of others against a common foe.” So wrote James Madison, justifying the decision to commission William Eaton to topple Yusuf Karamanli, pasha of Tripoli, and replace him with... Read more
When Capt. William Bainbridge’s ship, the George Washington , was seized by the Algerian leader Hussan Dey and forced to carry tribute to the Ottoman rulers in Istabul, his men decided to take their revenge. According to Michael Oren ( Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America in the Middle East: 1776 to the Present ), “His crew found sophomoric relief by tacking hard during the Muslims’ prayers, laughing as the prostrate worshipers slid across the deck and struggled to keep oriented... Read more
“Intervention is not now, never was, and never will be a set policy of the United States.” Herbert Hoover’s claim was cleverly stated: Even dozens of interventions might be defended as ad hoc responses to particular situations rather than part of a “set policy.” Still, Latin Americans had reason to be skeptical of Hoover’s assessment. As Niall Ferguson tells the story in Colossus: The Rise and Fall of the American Empire , intervention was, if not a set policy, a... Read more
“Intervention is not now, never was, and never will be a set policy of the United States.” Herbert Hoover’s claim was cleverly stated: Even dozens of interventions might be defended as ad hoc responses to particular situations rather than part of a “set policy.” Still, Latin Americans had reason to be skeptical of Hoover’s assessment. As Niall Ferguson tells the story in Colossus: The Rise and Fall of the American Empire , intervention was, if not a set policy, a... Read more
“I believe strictly in the Monroe Doctrine, in our Constitution, and in the laws of God,” said Mary Baker Eddy in 1923, a century after Monroe propose his doctrine. It’s an interesting list, in an interesting order. One of the virtues of Jay Sexton’s The Monroe Doctrine: Empire and Nation in Nineteenth-Century America lucid and illuminating history of “Monroe’s Doctrine” is the way he explains Eddy’s passion for what was originally a narrow, prosaic compromise meant to address a specific... Read more
“I believe strictly in the Monroe Doctrine, in our Constitution, and in the laws of God,” said Mary Baker Eddy in 1923, a century after Monroe propose his doctrine. It’s an interesting list, in an interesting order. One of the virtues of Jay Sexton’s The Monroe Doctrine: Empire and Nation in Nineteenth-Century America lucid and illuminating history of “Monroe’s Doctrine” is the way he explains Eddy’s passion for what was originally a narrow, prosaic compromise meant to address a specific... Read more
William Appleman Williams ( Empire As A Way of Life: An Essay on the Causes and Character of America’s Present Predicament Along with a Few Thoughts about an Alternative ) notes the tradition from mercantile to laissez-faire policies in the Jacksonian era: “We are dealing with the transition from a state-building – hence more centralized, organized, controlled, even partially planned – kind of capitalism to a far more individualistic, random, free-marketplace capitalism.” Yet, crucially, he adds that “Free-enterprise capitalism did... Read more
Bucking Montesquieu and most other theorists of republicanism, Madison argued that the American system required a large rather than a small territory to operate effectively: “Extend the sphere, and you take in a greater variety of parties and interests; you make it less probable that a majority of the whole will have a common motive to invade the rights of other citizens; or if such a common motive exists, it will be more difficult to feel it . . .... Read more
The message to the church at Sardis (Revelation 3:1-6) is framed by several word repetitions. The word “name” appears in v 1, and three times in verses 4-5 (trans. once as “people” in the NASB). Jesus says at the outset that the people of Sardis have a “name” for being alive ( zes ), but are in fact dead, and the message ends with a promise to the faithful that Jesus will not erase them from the “book of life”... Read more
In The Gift , Nabokov recounts this legend about Chernyshevsky’s What To Do? (Or, What Is To Be Done? ). Chernyshevsky wrote the novel in prison and gave proofs of each section to his friend Nekrasov. But “Nekrasov, on his way home (corner of Liteynaya and Basseynaya streets) in a hackney sleigh, lost the pink-paper package containing two manuscripts, each threaded through at the corners and entitled What To Do? While remembering with the lucidity of despair the whole of... Read more
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