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Roosevelt was just getting started. In 1903 the Dominican Republic’s finances collapsed. Its president, Carlos Morales, intimated that he would welcome annexation by the United States—the second time that country had offered itself up. A decade earlier, Roosevelt would have jumped at Morales’s offer. But now, exhausted by the Philippine War, he was
... See moreDaniel Immerwahr • How to Hide an Empire
The United States wasn’t the only country facing a rubber drought. Germany had the same problem. As a major industrial power whose colonies had been confiscated after the First World War, Germany depended profoundly on foreign markets for crucial raw materials. It held coal and wood in relative abundance, but when it came to rubber, oil, iron, and
... See moreDaniel Immerwahr • How to Hide an Empire
The End of the World is Just the Beginning: Mapping the Collapse of Globalization
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Progress there had been, the long record of life on Earth was indeed an upward path. The changes, however, had been achieved, he insisted, in great creative stages, these divided by momentous catastrophe. His doctrine, the cataclysmic theory of his own great master, Cuvier, was that all life on the planet had been destroyed repeatedly in order to s
... See moreDavid McCullough • Brave Companions
In general, risk-averse behavior has been common among all groups that operated along the margins of survival. The sheer challenge of survival in premodern societies always constrained the behavior of the poor. An interesting feature of this risk aversion, explored in The Great Reckoning, is that it reduced the range of peaceful economic behavior t
... See moreJames Dale Davidson, Lord William Rees-Mogg • The Sovereign Individual: Mastering the Transition to the Information Age
Then, three years after Goodall’s book was printed, a series of incidents occurred that horrified her. The tribe of chimps Goodall had been watching became quite large. Food was harder to find. Quarrels broke out. To relieve the pressure, the unit finally split into two separate tribes. One band stayed in the old home territory. The other left to c
... See moreHoward Bloom • The Lucifer Principle: A Scientific Expedition into the Forces of History
Society-wide, we should: Like the Maya, invest our surplus in public works, which make us antifragile. Prototype, prototype, prototype. Move to a precautionary mindset, such that we can learn to regulate our industries effectively, minimizing any negative externalities that they create. Consider Chesterton’s fence in all of its guises—from health c
... See moreHeather Heying • A Hunter-Gatherer's Guide to the 21st Century: Evolution and the Challenges of Modern Life
