The memes that turn the wheels of history: thepsmiths.com/p/review-the-…

These and many other spectacular anecdotes in today’s guest review! (Link in replies.)

Three short takes this week: how do you write about process knowledge, how do you tackle hard math, and how do you know if the Gospels are reliable sources?

Paul Fussell’s classic guide to the American class system, reconsidered, updated, and discussed.

There are people who say “you can just do things,” and then there are Venetian teenagers who stow away on an ocean-going vessel heading who-knows-where and wind up producing both the most entertaining and the most reliable history of the Mughal Empire at its zenith.

Ideas have consequences — even (especially?) in the grocery aisle.

The definitive (read: very long) history of how America went to war in Iraq, a decision no one actually ever made.

Why would you study Latin, and how should you do it? (Spoiler alert: definitely not with this textbook!)

and that’s what premodern honor culture taught me about b2b saas.

The strange story of a New Guinean who was killed in action by the Japanese, went up a ladder to Heaven (which is in the sky above Australia) where God promised to send him a boat full of Spam, and then prompted Jared Diamond to write “Guns, Germs, and Steel.”

Strangely, the world is not full of thinkpieces arguing that we need to leave our silly nonreligious and materialist superstitions behind because Science has proven that the cosmos is an infinite garden created just for us.