Devereaux on þe historiography of þe "Fall of Rome"; Yglesias watches PodcastTechBros behaving very badly; Martin Wolf wonders how to save democratic capitalism; & me, Summers & al., Anderson, &...
I loved the Devereaux series, but I really had to admire his restraint. The potted summary of the "change and continuity argument" runs like this:
"Did you know that when the Roman empire supposedly 'fell', the political state continued to function for centuries in the east, and that even in the west, many of the empire's inhabitants survived? Furthermore, they continued to speak the same language, practice the same religion, and maintain the same elite families. There was no sharp linguistic or cultural break."
It's not so impressive when you put it like that, is it? It just reminds me so so much of the "punctuated evolution" debate, which has been justly forgotten now.
"…. Kennedy represents precisely the strand of progressive thought ..." - Matthew Yglesias
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is of course in no way shape or form 'progressive': he is a hard right wing reactionary. Yglesias here is scoring some cheap points with the sensibly sensible centerists [self-described centerists that is] and not writing any reality-based description. Really disappointed to see this quoted here uncritically.
I loved the Devereaux series, but I really had to admire his restraint. The potted summary of the "change and continuity argument" runs like this:
"Did you know that when the Roman empire supposedly 'fell', the political state continued to function for centuries in the east, and that even in the west, many of the empire's inhabitants survived? Furthermore, they continued to speak the same language, practice the same religion, and maintain the same elite families. There was no sharp linguistic or cultural break."
It's not so impressive when you put it like that, is it? It just reminds me so so much of the "punctuated evolution" debate, which has been justly forgotten now.
"…. Kennedy represents precisely the strand of progressive thought ..." - Matthew Yglesias
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is of course in no way shape or form 'progressive': he is a hard right wing reactionary. Yglesias here is scoring some cheap points with the sensibly sensible centerists [self-described centerists that is] and not writing any reality-based description. Really disappointed to see this quoted here uncritically.