In his famed 16th-century tract The Prince, the Florentine diplomat and author Niccolò Machiavelli warned that mercenaries are “dangerous,” for they are “disunited, ambitious and without discipline, unfaithful and valiant before friends” while being “cowardly before enemies.” Soldiers of fortune, Machiavelli claimed, “have neither the fear of God nor fidelity to men.” Such men fill […]

The exhibition “Caspar David Friedrich: The Soul of Nature” will run at the Metropolitan Museum of Art through May 11. After a long day of hiking, you’ve finally reached the top of the mountain. Tired, thirsty, but exhilarated by your accomplishment, you set your walking stick at your side and look around. But instead of […]

The first city was founded by the first murderer in the biblical story, which tells us something deep about urban dwellings. Jam a crowd of people inside city walls, and what did anyone expect would be the result? Disease, depravity, crime, and the madness of the mob. In the Bible‘s first books, Sodom and Gomorrah […]

Often in political history, towering figures command such attention that even the most consequential of their contemporaries are reduced to footnotes. George S. Boutwell dedicated his life to the defense of democracy, the abolition of slavery, civil rights, and the fight against imperial expansion, yet his name is hardly remembered outside academic circles. He helped […]