Conquest Via Luxury

Tacitus wrote Agricola to honor his father-in-law, Cnaeus Julius Agricola, who died August 23, 93 CE.  After a short introduction (exordium, 1-3), Tacitus organized the work in three parts. In chapters 4 to 9, Tacitus narrates Agricola’s life before he became governor of Britain in 77 CE. In the second part (chapters 10-38), Tacitus covers Agricola’s governorship ofContinue reading “Conquest Via Luxury”

Gabriele D’Annunzio

Before he died, my uncle Tony gifted me his first Italian edition of Il Fuoco (The Flame, 1900), signed by Gabriele D’Annunzio himself. I regret that I didn’t record where or why he acquired the book. He did teach himself Italian, but I don’t know if he mastered it sufficiently to read the original. IContinue reading “Gabriele D’Annunzio”

Taleb VS Murray

Nassim Taleb has indicted Charles Murray as a “mountebank” because Murray demonstrates that measured general intelligence, G, has a high correlation with financial success. Correlation has a strong resemblance to causation, especially when the measure of success is a broad proxy like income, which can lead erroneously to social Darwinism. Because this is a dangerousContinue reading “Taleb VS Murray”