4,378 words

Hamilton Gregory
McNamara’s Folly: The Use of Low-IQ Troops in the Vietnam War plus The Induction of Unfit Men, Criminals, and Misfits
West Conshohocken, Pennsylvania: Infinity Publishing, 2015

Hamilton Gregory unveiled a seldom-explored facet of modern military history with McNamara’s Folly. Similar subject matter is touched on with the inspiring film Forrest Gump (more…)

5,855 words

Gregory Clark
The Son Also Rises: Surnames and the History of Social Mobility
Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2014

One of the continual areas of inquiry in sociology and economics is that of social mobility. Much effort is put forth in attempts to uncover the degree to which it occurs and to delineate the factors involved in its occurrence (or lack thereof) among various demographic groups. (more…)

2,924 words

Translated by G. A. Malvicini

We have already had the occasion to point to the illusoriness of the claim that modern man, in general, has achieved an autonomy and self-consciousness he previously lacked. This illusion can in part be explained by the fact that attention today is primarily directed towards external conditions, to the disappearance of certain material limits to the freedom of the individual — (more…)