Thanks to @mythsbaby.bsky.social for a great conversation about my new book "The White Pedestal" on Greco-Roman Antiquity and White Nationalism, both out today! podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/c...

Happy birthday to the University of Glasgow, founded in this city because Pope Nicholas V had heard good things about the weather and the food.

Really need to do a deep dive into the modern status of White Zimbabweans and White South Africans at somepoint, because how they got to where they are and where they are as communities are actually rather distinct, as are the broader social, economic and cultural dynamics.

Aside from the obvious moral urgency of taking a stand against imperialism, it's incomprehensible to me that so many Democratic sages fail to see the political opportunity presented by another Republican president rushing into a disastrous war of choice.

I say we go with what the late Pro-Prefect of the Holy Office, that conservative stalwart of Roman curial theology and traditionalist resistance at Vatican II, Alfredo Card. Ottaviani proposed: an actual world republic with global statutory authority that would outlaw all (even "just") war

Thermopylae On Ice

Sony has patented an AI gaming ghost that will play PlayStation games for you when you get stuck www.eurogamer.net/sony-has-pat...

“Why are Popes more progressive than politicians on immigration?”, as Speranta Dumitru asked

I went down to the Peiraeus yesterday with Glaucon the son of Ariston, because I wanted to see the festival; if you go down tomorrow you can get 30% off your first ride with the promo code UBER-US-2026.

Restarting "the thread to rule all other threads", my mega-meta-thread with years of literature recommendations history, technology and war on Twitter (have a read through before Twitter dies for real) twitter.com/M__Verbrugge... Pictured is my favourite academic book #PoliSky #IntSec #IRTheory

Sailboats of the Upper Guinea (Senegal, Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, Guinea-Conakry, Sierra Leone, and Liberia) used in coastal and riverine trade www.africanhistoryextra.com/p/the-africa...

Menelik Honours Makonnen ca. 1906. Ethiopia. #ethnographxt

The Intellectual Foundations of African Proto-Nationalism and the “invention” of Nations in the 19th Century www.africanhistoryextra.com/p/the-intell...

The African origins of Cola: Long distance Trade in pre-colonial West Africa (ca. 1000-1900 CE) www.africanhistoryextra.com/p/the-africa...

Philosophers—the most relentlessly disputatious people alive—in complete agreement for once.

Some years ago- never mind how long precisely- having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world. And that’s why I booked my fateful voyage with Trivago. Use code SPERM15 for 15% off.

It is arguably one of the more serious omissions in Thucydides’ narrative that we don’t get to hear the weasely, fig-sucking statements of the leaders of different members of the Delian League every time that Athens launches another aggressive campaign.

Continuing citation of That Thucydides Line, both here and on Ex-Twitter, as if it explains everything. What’s funny is the number of people on the other site giving the quote in Greek, as if that brings greater authority - except they all have different versions of the Greek…

On the deployment of the ‘strong do what they want, you suffer’ line on social media in relation to the Russian invasion of Ukraine - which reflects the way it’s deployed in pretty well any conflict: thesphinxblog.com/2022/04/05/w...

Since it’s is in the news, or at any rate on social media, at the moment… Recent reflections on what, if anything, the Melian Dialogue can tell us about the workings of international politics - which may be primarily about the discourse rather than the reality: thesphinxblog.com/2023/10/22/w...

Big theme in the post-Vatican II moral theologians too. Perfect freedom can be conceived as unrestricted power to do whatever, but if that doesn't make you happy, what's the point? Authentic freedom is a "force for growth and maturity in truth and goodness" - it's a creative capacity.

It’s at least worth asking why we’re justified in interfering with suicide attempts.

There is an odd irony in censoring the teaching of Plato in order (checks notes) to protect western civilization from tenured radicals.

Juana Ramírez was born in Venezuela in 1790. The daughter of an enslaved African woman & a Spanish general, she commanded an all-female artillery unit in 1813 “instrumental in resisting Spanish soldiers’ attempts to reconquer independent Venezuela” & is interred in the National Mausoleum of Heroes.

"Brazilian authorities refused to isolate January 8 as a spontaneous and feverish riot. Instead, they treated it as a conspiracy with identifiable authors. Days after the attack, police searched the home of Anderson Torres (...Brasília’s then–security chief)..." jacobin.com/2026/01/janu...

Athenian conduct meant Spartan propaganda actually worked

An anthropologist once compared it to the British empire, where "If you got a starred first in Latin at Cambridge, obviously you were qualified to run half of India."

I mean look at Sullivan's resume. Elite lawyer (YLS, SCOTUS clerkship) + midwestern political networking (Klobuchar). That's how you get in. Not military for foreign service experience, IR or history PhD, areas studies expertise, or overseas business or NGO work.

Teaching Book V of the Republic is sedition

ICYMI: Texas A&M admin is requiring a faculty member to either remove *Plato* from their syllabus for being too woke or be reassigned to teach “Ethics for Engineers” at 8am

This got buried at the end of some questions, but I did a rundown of at least part of *why* the Romans, during the Middle Republic, were so eager to expand the citizen-soldier-farmer (assidui) class, rather than jealously hoarding their prerogatives. Naturally it has to do with taxes.

Excellent

Thread.

Reading Ganz's 2022 article on Italy and Ethiopia: www.unpopularfront.news/p/mussolinis...

Kind of funny how Utd and Spurs both get into these self-inflicted recursive caretaker manager situations, incapable of sticking by a good decision and eager to get stuck into the bad ones.

Pope continues to be art deco, and I continue to stan. Also, he keeps wearing his amice, which is fantastic.

There's an unintentionally funny video of Nicky Butt and Paul Scholes being given a long list of candidates for the next Man Utd manager and them responding yes or no, which seems all plausible and serious until they say 'yes' to Roy Keane.

Opening para of Appiah’s first chapter is a very droll take on the matter

It really isn’t, even setting aside the violation of Indian treaties.

There must still be some living survivors of the late 40s and the Emergency: if so, they’ll have seen two Anglophone empires go horribly bad.

Imperial aggression comes with consequences.

"Will it bring them the fourth title they have desired for so long, pulling them level with their great rivals Ghana? ... for the first time in a long time, there is a simple pleasure in watching their attempt."

kind of darkly funny that "gender studies" is the stereotypical "useless degree" because gender studies will help you understand a large and important chunk of the current psychosis in american life

The Romans, looking at a Greek polis that can mobilize maybe a third of its citizen population as heavy infantry:

Yay, our new species is out! Only two Xanthephialtes species were known to exist from before, now we've added a third from Uganda. Please welcome: Xanthephialtes iida sp. nov! 🧪🐣🥳 Named after Emil's wife. In @zookeys.pensoft.net with @ilarisaaksjarvi.bsky.social, me, Emil, Kari, Simon.

Old and broke: the union of the true, the good, and the beautiful New and woke: the union of [redacted], [redacted], and [redacted]

I think "various attempts to do left-wingery off the back of charismatic militarists will always fail (fuck you Sankara that was one time it doesn't count)" is a Bedrock Take for me and will continue to be so.