September 1, 1939 is the date the German Nazis invaded Poland, initiating World War Two. Less well remembered is the shortly thereafter Soviet Russian invasion of Poland. A month earlier, the Nazis and Soviets had agreed not to attack each other and to divide Poland (and other parts of eastern Europe) between them. The Soviets […]
Remembering the Nazi-Soviet invasions of Poland Read More »
Thanks to Mohamad Machine-Chian for this translation. It was first published as two separate columns in The Good Life series as “Is Republishing Hitler’s Mein Kampf the Correct Decision?” and “Is Free Speech Dead in Universities?” The two articles were edited by Vinay Kolhatkar and published at The Savvy Street. The articles were also translated
Persian translation of “Hitler and the Death of Free Speech” Read More »
From a review of always-thoughtful Mark Lilla’s 2018 book on how to revive liberalism. The question, says Samuel Moyn, is: “How did we get here? Much depends on how one narrates the path from 1968 to Trump’s election.” Moyn’s suggestion is: ‘After 1968, disaster set in. Faced with the sins of Vietnam, the Democrats flirted
A leftist on how we got to Trump Read More »
From 2006, an eight-minute documentary clip with my answer. Topics covered: (1) National Socialist philosophy, (2) the Nazi Party’s original 25-point platform — collectivism, economic socialism, nationalism, authoritarianism — (3) negotiations to merge with the German Socialist Party, (4) Hitler and Goebbels speeches on socialism, and (5) the symbolism of the swastika. The book based
How Socialist Were the Nazis? Read More »
The first issue of The Truth Seeker was published in 1873 and “counted among its illustrious subscribers and progressive writers Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Mark Twain, Thomas Edison, Clarence Darrow, and Robert Ingersoll.” The latest issue includes my article “No Reformation for Islam, Please.” To download the issue, go to this page at The TruthSeeker and
The Truth Seeker — free thought magazine Read More »
Hager’s The Alchemy of Air (Broadway, 2009) is a gripping read. You might think a story about chemistry and chemical engineering — fixed nitrogen, hydrogen, and ammonia — would be a snooze, but you might be wrong. Subtitle: A Jewish Genius, a Doomed Tycoon, and the Scientific Discovery that Fed the World and Fueled the
Thomas Hager’s *The Alchemy of Air* Read More »
An officer in the Polish underground voluntarily went to Auschwitz. “In September 1940, [Witold] Pilecki didn’t know exactly what was going on in Auschwitz, but he knew someone had to find out. He would spend two and a half years in the prison camp, smuggling out word of the methods of execution and interrogation. He
Witold Pilecki at Auschwitz Read More »
I gave a talk in Gdańsk, Poland, on “The Philosophers and the Birth of National Socialism.” Along the way we discuss Oswald Spengler, Carl Schmitt, Martin Heidegger, Friedrich Nietzsche, and others. The video of the lecture and question period is here (or at YouTube): Thanks to Dr. Marek Szymaniak of the Museum of the Second
“The Philosophers and the Birth of National Socialism” — Gdańsk lecture Read More »