In my latest National Post column I say it's time to leave Afghanistan and keep our powder dry and our morale up for the next challenge.
"I grew up in the ‘70s and ‘80s, as part of a generation who were taught the minutiae of 'social history.' There was no wider context to put it in, no framework, no sense of a larger, grander picture. It was plodding and confusing and mind-numbingly dull. It was after I left school that I became interested in history as it is meant to be taught – as a story, as conflict and character, as cause and effect. My approach comes from my own 're-discovery' of Canadian history."
Will Ferguson in a Q&A in The Beaver October-November 2005
Jesse Brown of Canadaland just posted an interview with me about The Rebel, Charlottesville and the state of public debate more generally. He and I certainly don't see eye to eye on a lot of things so I appreciate the opportunity to have a civil discussion about our disagreements instead of the sort of shouting match that too often erupts nowadays.
In my latest National Post column I insist that, since Islam is a religion not a race, whatever concern about radical Islam might be it cannot be racism.
"newspapers are fond of referring to the ‘dust-bin of history,’ a notion they borrow not from Karl Marx, as they think, but from an English writer and member of Parliament, August Birrell. On inspection the bin is much less full than is commonly believed. The repeats and returns in the last five centuries have been frequent."
Jacques Barzun From Dawn to Decadence
In my latest National Post column I say compassionate, intelligent, constructive discussion of Confederate monuments must begin with forthright recognition that they celebrate racial slavery and bigotry.
"to even begin to understand an era, we must visit it on its own terms, and project ourselves into its foreign mind. This is almost impossible to do, which is what makes it such fun. In a sense it means coming home, and finding your home made strange, for the people in the past didn’t think of themselves as living there. Like us, they thought they were living in the present. And then returning to our present, if we have learned anything, we begin to see it as another past."
David Warren in Western Standard December 20, 2004