A sharp review of a book by a colleague of mine, on international geo-politics and the importance of prudence.  "What, one is forced to ask, should be made of a work that is so scrupulous in historical analysis yet so impoverished in critical self-reflection?"

An interesting piece on a recent rewrite of Shakespeare's "Henry IV, Parts I and II" and "Henry V." It's about the mystery of how someone becomes a leader, and whether Shakespeare or the Netflix directors have a better grip on that.  Guess which one the Folger Library thinks is better?  (I may agree, too, even though my favorite version of the Henry IV plays will always be My Own Private Idaho, for the obscurity of the transformation, which Keanu Reeves makes look like betrayal of humanity--which becoming a leader may inevitably be.)

Early date for human mastery of fire-making.

A really nice, careful, patient appreciation of the poetry of John Ashbery.  "Although no sustained work of art comes to pass without due deliberation and craftsmanship, there are occasions when the symbiosis of consciousness and unconsciousness produces a mysterious beau- ty immune to deconstruction. Not every poet gets there, but Ashbery did. His best poems affirm Eliot’s adage, “Genuine poetry can communicate before it is understood.”"

"I think until about 2014 I was working in a mode of both scholarly and creative output in which I felt li  ke I was just on top of the zeitgeist; I was part of it; I was moving along with it the way one rides a wave. Circa 2015 that wave crashed. I’ve been reconstituting myself ever since then."   Justin Smith, a philosopher teaching in Paris, exploring the condition of a lot of middle-age people I know, not least myself.  I'm not sure if this will be interesting to you if you're in your 20s or 30s, but if you're in your 40s or 50s, I bet you'll find some interesting stuff here--how much, or how little, I won't guess.  I think he's too pessimistic, but some of the experience of alienation and estrangement seems on-target, at least to me.  Is it the changes in our culture, the rise of social media, just us getting older, or some combination of all of these?   

Bryan Van Norden, an excellent philosopher who specializes in ancient Chinese philosophy, on five events that you should know about to help you understand how people born and raised in mainland China think about their place in the world and their nation's destiny.