Author: Daniel Larison (Daniel Larison)

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An Image of the East
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An Image of the East

[This review first appeared in the November 2007 issue of Chronicles.] It is a cliché among Byzantinists that too few people in the world, especially in the West, know anything about Byzantium, so there is no doubt that more works of “popular synthesis” that make this Christian successor to the Roman Empire in the East...

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Worse Than Obama?

The Obama administration declared the mid-June announcement that BP was establishing an escrow fund worth $20 billion to pay compensation claims to Gulf Coast residents and businesses to be a resounding victory for the White House, but what it actually showed was Obama’s hands-off, indifferent management style, in which nothing is ever clearly or properly...

Nestorius of Constaninople
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Nestorius of Constaninople

In 428 AD [sic], Giusto Traina has written a brief and engaging overview of the Mediterranean and Near East in the early fifth century. Traina, an ancient historian with a strong interest in classical Armenia, chose to survey the events of that year owing to its pivotal importance for the political and cultural history of...

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Lincolnism Today: The Long Marriage of Centralized Power and Concentrated Wealth

In the Anglo-American experience, the partisans of concentrated wealth and advocates for political centralization have long been connected.  Over the last three centuries, that connection has grown stronger, and in the United States this process accelerated dramatically during and after the Lincoln administration.  Lincolnism, the idea that the central state ...

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Lincolnism Today

In the Anglo-American experience, the partisans of concentrated wealth and advocates for political centralization have long been connected.  Over the last three centuries, that connection has grown stronger, and in the United States this process accelerated dramatically during and after the Lincoln administration.  Lincolnism, the idea that the central state can and should use its...

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Moving Targets: The Trouble With Early Primaries

The 2008 presidential contest has dominated political news for over a year, starting almost immediately after the 2006 midterm elections.  Most of the coverage has devolved, as it always does, to discussion of the “horse race” among the candidates, the competition for fundraising, and an insufferably large number of debates and fora that few actual...

An Image of the East
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An Image of the East

It is a cliché among Byzantinists that too few people in the world, especially in the West, know anything about Byzantium, so there is no doubt that more works of “popular synthesis” that make this Christian successor to the Roman Empire in the East accessible to a broader audience are greatly needed.  Colin Wells sets...

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A Muslim in Congress

Keith Ellison won the nomination of the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party on September 12 to represent Minnesota’s 5th Congressional District, which centers on the city of Minneapolis; he seems all but certain to win the general election against the Republican nominee, Alan Fine. Ellison’s primary victory has generated tremendous national media attention, because his likely triumph in...

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‘War Between the States’

Judge John Roberts can rest assured that his Supreme Court confirmation will go very smoothly, judging from the weak 11th-hour attacks the left is mounting against him in the media.  A “shocking” discovery about his record appeared in an August 26 report in the Washington Post that took issue with a phrase Roberts used while...