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Missive #436 Published 28 January 2025

A New York Times –bestselling historian charts how and why societies from ancient Greece to the modern era chose to utterly destroy their foes, and warns that similar wars of obliteration are possible in our time. In The End of Everything , military historian Victor Davis Hanson narrates a series of sieges and sackings that span the age of antiquity to the conquest of the New World to show how societies descend into barbarism and obliteration.

Missive #435 Published 27 January 2025

The Human Situation is a collection of lectures delivered by Huxley at [University of California] Santa Barbara in 1959. The topics covered range from the nature of man to the foundations of language, with discourses on religion and nationalism thrown in for good measure. Huxley brings his penetrating and prescient insights to bear on his topics, addressing them not as universal truths to be uncovered but rather as open questions to be examined from all angles. Of particular interest is his treatment of the ancient links between mysticism ('the religion of immediate experience') and mainstream Christian denominationalism ('religion as the manipulation of symbols'). The Human Situation stands on its own merits as a well-written, accessible text on issues that, even today, have broad impacts on public policy, human health, and social order. This book also serves as a useful primer or jumping-off point for further forays into philosophy, religion, and the life of the individual in modern times.

Missive #432 Published 22 January 2025

Bernard Cornwell makes real history come alive in his breathtaking historical fiction. Praised as "the direct heir to Patrick O'Brian" (Agincourt, The Fort), Cornwell has brilliantly captured the fury, chaos, and excitement of battle as few writers have ever done—perhaps most vividly in his phenomenally popular novels following the illustrious military career of British Army officer Richard Sharpe during the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Chronicling Sharpe's involvement in the famous Battle of Trafalgar in 1805, Sharpe's Trafalgar finds the young ensign captive on a French warship and in gravest peril on the eve of the one of the most spectacular naval confrontations in history. Perhaps the San Francisco Chronicle said it best: "If only all history lessons could be as vibrant."

Missive #431 Published 21 January 2025

Reviews of High Border Country should be entrusted to novelists since it is one of many current books which are historically based, but in which the emphasis is upon the telling of a good story. The book is superb, rapidly moving description, generously sprinkled with potent adjectives and conversation which skillfully etch the portraits of he-men, and in some cases of he-women, who careen through a famous or an infamous career, usually to a sudden death with their boots on. The book is one of the best collections of tall tales of the northern high plains which have been produced. It is possible that it may give a new name to the upper Missouri country of Montana and portions of the adjoining Dakotas, Wyoming, and Idaho in which it has its setting.

Missive #430 Published 20 January 2025

At least half of these essays were published in previous books. Those that were not were most likely written by Huxley in his 'later years' when he became mystical, experimented with mescaline and LSD and became an advisor to Timothy Leary.

Missive #427 Published 15 January 2025