Just because it’s a good idea to begin your day with some outstanding prose. Wills’s book is one of the great pieces of political analysis and reporting, still well worth reading for pleasure—such excellent prose!—and for insight—Wills’s analytical insights are on par with his acuity of observation.
Can one spend too much time investigating and thinking about the study and discipline of history? I think not! (Well, within reasonable limits.) Ricoeur plus Aron is a great pairing from France, like a fine wine with a great cheese. Nota bene the final clause in the quote.
Again, my preoccupation with how to think about history. Add to my list of preoccupations the most important philosopher that you probably haven’t heard of, or at least haven’t read, RG Collingwood. The Inglis book is a splendid biography, critical analysis, and appreciation of Collingwood’s life and legacy.
Again, you can’t get too much—again, within reason—of Collingwood. And in this instance, he’s quite correct. One of Collingwood’s great accomplishments in his all-too-brief career was to show the validity and importance of history as a form of knowledge and a way of knowing.
There are few genuine conservatives about in the world today; most regimes, not matter how antiliberal, are quite modern in many aspects of their thought, as Mishra suggests. Why is this important, if you think of liberalism—broadly conceived, simply as a contemporary American political outlook—worth saving, as I do, we’d best correctly understand its critics and rivals.
I learned a lot from Mishra’s Ruins of Empire. Follow with (or precede by) Erez Manela’s Wilsonian Moment.