
By the middle of 1945 Japan was defeated and in ruins. One hundred cities had been firebombed. Continue reading “What We Can Learn from The Seven Samurai”
Reviews, journalism, musings
Is the Japanese film The Seven Samurai a parable of our times?
By the middle of 1945 Japan was defeated and in ruins. One hundred cities had been firebombed. Continue reading “What We Can Learn from The Seven Samurai”
If you have fixed policies like free trade (like the North American Free Trade Agreement [NAFTA]), then the Department of Commerce has very little role to play. Continue reading “How Free is Free Trade?”
For 35 years both political parties in the USA have backed what is called market fundamentalism, a.k.a. neoliberalism, or free trade capitalism. This unanimity was so well understood worldwide that it was called the Washington Consensus.
Continue reading “How Trump Appealed to America’s Working Class”
Paper making was already in full steam in the Rhineland before Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press in 1450. It was thought that paper making was invented in Italy, but actually the Islamic world and China had preceded Western Europe by many centuries. But once the Rhineland got going, it went full steam. Continue reading “Did the Printing Press Cause the Protestant Reformation?”