"Stalingrad: The Fateful Siege" is a gripping book that offers a detailed and nuanced understanding of one of the most important battles of the 20th century.
Not One Step Backwards
Thucydides and Pericles: A Short Summary on Reason and War
Admittedly, I had only read a little of history and war before Michael and I began reading together. My first attempt at reading history “seriously” was Oswald Spengler’s two-volume set, Decline of the West. I mistakenly thought that history could be comprehended like a novel or short story. I was like a young boy who,... Continue Reading →
Caesar Comes to Gaul
"When the results of this year's campaign were reported in his dispatches, a thanksgiving of twenty days was celebrated in Rome."
Turning Pages II: A Review of Books from 2022
Cal and I discuss the books we took down in 2022 and reflect on our lives as our twenties draw to a close. We also discuss goals for 2023. Thank you to all who have supported us over the years, we look forward to another year and opportunity to learn. Cal Wilkerson and Michael McPhail... Continue Reading →
Omne Solum Forti Patria Est
In 1803 President Thomas Jefferson selected his personal secretary, Captain Meriwether Lewis, to lead a voyage up the Missouri River to the Rockies, over the mountains, down the Columbia River to the Pacific Ocean, and back. Lewis and his partner, Captain William Clark, made the first map of the trans-Mississippi West, provided invaluable scientific data on the flora and fauna of the Louisiana Purchase territory, and established the American claim to Oregon, Washington, and Idaho.
Time and Memory
“Can it be that there was something evil in the matter from which he made the universe? When he shaped this matter and fitted it to do his purpose, did he leave in it some part which he did not convert to good? But why should he have done this? Are we to believe that, although he is omnipotent, he had not the power to convert the whole of this matter to good and change it so that no evil remained in it? Why, indeed, did he will to make anything of it at all? Why did he not instead, by this same omnipotence, destroy it utterly and entirely? Could it have existed against his will? If it had existed from eternity, why did he allow it to exist in that state through the infinite ages of the past and then, after so long a time, decide to make something of it?
Et In Arcadia Ego
"It makes no difference what men think of war, he said the judge. War endures. As well ask men what they think of stone. War was always here. Before man was, war waited for him. The ultimate trade awaiting its ultimate practitioner. That is the way it was and will be. That way and not some other way."
Art of Power
Jefferson was a complicated, contradictory figure who has been praised by liberals and conservatives alike throughout the American epoch. He is known as the philosopher and architect of the Declaration of Independence – the arbiter of liberty and proponent of egalitarianism.
Turning Pages: A Review of Books From 2018
Cal and I discuss and reflect on the books we journeyed through in 2018 along with reading goals for 2019.
Master and Commander
Thomas J. Jackson in many ways is the archetype of Southern honor, bravery, faith and leadership. Growing up in the Deep South, I've seen portraits and paintings of Jackson in pastor's offices, boardrooms of lawyers, bankers, insurance agents and in various homes throughout my life. There is a certain admiration even reverence for Stonewall Jackson... Continue Reading →
