——— History of Things ——— Any decent murder mystery should begin with a dead body in the woods. That’s how this one starts. In 1994, park scouts…
Posts tagged as “Authoritarianism”
The Fragility of Representative Governance and the Need to Protect It
Democracy is the most common form of governance. By 2017, there were more democratic than autocratic regimes in the world, a trend since the 70s. …
Kaczyński’s Mazurka
Since 2015, Poland has experienced a period of democratic backsliding. This trend has greatly worried European observers; developments in Poland are troubling enough on their…
Homo Hominibus Tigris: Xi Jinping and the Rise of the Good Dictator
To the countries of the Western world, where the ancient Greek traditions of democratic governance have institutionalized over centuries, China is a peculiar, if not…
Crossroads Blues
Crossroads Blues In 1965, the city of Singapore was kicked out of Malaysia. It was poor and isolated, with an economy wholly subsidized by Britain’s…
Nobels and Whistles in Beijing
Tu Youyou was labeled with “three noes”: no medical degree, no doctorate, and no work overseas. And yet, she became not only the first Chinese…
The Waning Hermit Kingdom (Part I): A Faltering Kim-Regime
When tensions rose along the Korean Peninsula this past August, it was not military provocation, but South Korean speakers blaring anti-North Korean propaganda that spurred…