Starship Troopers, sixty years old, is a famous work of science fiction. As with most Robert Heinlein novels, the point is more the ideas than plot or character. Heinlein therefore often swerves dangerously close to message fiction, but it never becomes intolerable. This book is Heinlein’s vehicle to explain who he thinks should rule a| The Worthy House • Towards A Politics of Future Past -
We have all heard of the fad for DNA ancestry testing. Being a paranoid, I haven’t joined the crowd, because all testing companies are happy to hand over the results to the police, and what if I need to keep quiet some heinous crime I commit where I leave my DNA behind? Not to mention,| The Worthy House • Towards A Politics of Future Past -
What Americans need now is a cheery book that assures us how our global power and hegemony are destined to last, if not forever, for a good deal longer. This is not that book. The Fate of Empires is an obscure work, by an obscure man. Yet it apparently still has a following today, because| The Worthy House • Towards A Politics of Future Past -
[Of the famous Indian war chief Tecumseh, and of men of destiny. This article was originally published December 11, 2020.] I have always been aware of the great Shawnee Indian war chief Tecumseh. I grew up within walking distance of the site of his confederacy’s defeat, by William Henry Harrison at the Battle of Tippecanoe,| The Worthy House • Towards A Politics of Future Past -
Every so often, some cretin threatens me on X, formerly known as Twitter. These soyboy types tend to lead by saying I appear weak and fragile. I doubt I would lose a physical fight, certainly against these degenerate specimens, even though it has been many years since I actually fought. I may be aging, but| The Worthy House • Towards A Politics of Future Past -
The Earth Is Weeping offers an almost painfully even-handed look at the conflicts between the United States and American Indian tribes after the Civil War. Of course, given the historiography of the past fifty years, an even-handed look necessarily inverts the traditional narrative. Here, Team Indian does good and bad, and Team White does good| The Worthy House • Towards A Politics of Future Past -
I have long been fascinated by the wars between the European settlers of America and those whom they conquered and displaced, the American Indians. I grew up near a famous battlefield memorial of those wars; maybe that is the reason I have often wondered why it is that in North America, unlike in other conquered| The Worthy House • Towards A Politics of Future Past -