Thought and Memory

Tag: History

  • The King of Dogs

    “In the frigid north, before the domestication of dogs, men hunted and patrolled their territory in pairs or alone because the limited caloric resources couldn’t support large tribes. Women needed to stay put with the kids. The necessarily small squad size limited men’s travel. They couldn’t haul much. It restricted when and how they could fight. They were pressed deep into tougher land. If you’re the sort who believes in evolution, this would be maybe fourteen thousand years ago. And then the mystery arrives: these solo operators of the north all the sudden begin to domesticate wolves. Now they’re going out to face the unknown with a true gang who will kill or die for their master, their alpha. They can haul, they can fight, they’ve got warmth in the blizzard. Dogs are an early warning measure, so security improves. This allows the northerners to survive and eventually thrive. Western man owes his existence to dogs. In my particular worldview it’s neither contradiction nor exaggeration to say that dogs are a direct gift from God. That’s why we don’t kill dogs.” – From “King of Dogs”

    I still think about this book from time to time, and this passage in particular. I agree wholeheartedly with the statement: “In my particular worldview, it’s neither contradiction nor exaggeration to say that dogs are a direct gift from God.”

    But I’ll also add: horses.

    Horses are a direct gift from God, too. Dogs and horses are man’s best friends and surely a sign from God that He loves us. Where would we be without them?

    Both of these animals, dogs and horses, were first domesticated by ancient peoples of Eurasia, especially the vast and unforgiving lands of the Eurasian Steppe. From this rugged cradle of civilization, mankind gained not just survival, but partnership.

    Dogs were first domesticated between 20,000 and 40,000 years ago during the Upper Paleolithic period, likely somewhere in Eurasia perhaps Siberia, Central Asia, or Eastern Europe by nomadic hunter-gatherers. These men lived before agriculture, often alone or in small bands, and found mutual benefit in bonding with tamer gray wolves. These early dogs helped with hunting, offered protection, and gave companionship in the harsh northern wilds.

    Then, thousands of years later, another remarkable development occurred on the Eurasian Steppe: the domestication of the horse. Around 3500 to 3000 BC, the Botai people, a pastoralist culture living deep in the Steppe, became the first known humans to domesticate horses. They used them initially for milk and meat, but this marked the beginning of a revolutionary partnership that would eventually change warfare, travel, and human society forever.

    Though separated by over 15,000 years and differing in lifestyle, hunter-gatherers for dogs, early herders for horses, these peoples of the Eurasian world gave humanity its most faithful animal allies. Both dogs and horses came from the wilds of Eurasia and the peoples who tamed those wilds.

    We owe everything we are to God, to dogs, to horses, and to those first men of the Steppe, strong, resourceful, and blessed with insight. These animals are not merely beasts of burden or companions. They are proof that God did not intend for man to walk alone.

  • How Totalitarianism Buried the Monarchic Order: From the French Revolution to World War II

    Introduction: The Old Order vs. the Revolutionary Tide

    The period from the French Revolution through the end of World War II witnessed the dramatic dismantling of Europe’s old monarchic order and the rise of mass ideological regimes. In the traditionalist view espoused by thinkers like Hans-Hermann Hoppe, this transformation was no triumph of progress, but a civilizational tragedy. The centuries-old system of hereditary monarchy, rooted in Christian faith and organic social hierarchy, had provided stability, continuity, and a “spirit of a gentleman and the spirit of religion” that nurtured European civilization’s highest achievements. The revolutionary tide that began in 1789 swept away these thrones and altars, replacing them with regimes claiming to rule in the name of “the people” – but which all too often produced new forms of despotism and chaos. From the Jacobins of 1793 to the totalitarian dictators of the 20th century, the upheavals of this age can be seen as revolts against throne and altar that paradoxically led to even more absolute and ideologically driven forms of rule. In the words of Hoppe, modern mass democracy itself “has nothing to do with freedom” and is merely a “soft variant of communism”, carrying forward the egalitarian and centralizing impulse of those earlier revolutions. This deep dive will argue that the rise of totalitarian regimes marked the definitive end of the old monarchic systems – and that this was not a change for the better. Adopting an explicitly traditionalist and pro-monarchy stance, we will explore chronologically and thematically how the ancien régime (old order) was undermined and destroyed, and why monarchy’s fall was a civilizational loss that subsequent liberal democracies have not truly repaired.

    (more…)

  • What an absolute unit.

    “I don’t feel like dying yet.” – Roberdeau Wheat to his doctor. Wheat proved the doctor wrong, who pronounced that Wheat would surely die from his wounds.

    Chatham Roberdeau Wheat (April 9, 1826 – June 27, 1862) was a captain in the United States Army Volunteers during the Mexican War, Louisiana State Representative, lawyer, mercenary in Cuba, Mexico, and Italy, adventurer, and major in the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War.

    Early life and career

    Born in Alexandria, Virginia, the son of an Episcopalian preacher, Wheat moved with his family to Nashville, Tennessee when he was twelve.

    Growing in size to 6 foot, 4 inches tall and weighing 240 pounds, Wheat’s physical stature was impressive. He was elected a lieutenant then later as a captain in the First Tennessee Mounted Regiment under General Winfield Scott in the Mexican–American War.

    He left the military due to illness and returned to Louisiana, where he was elected a representative of New Orleans to the Louisiana State Legislature in 1848. He was admitted to the bar in 1849.

    Subsequently, his wanderlust inspired him to undertake a series of international mercenary and filibuster adventures. He was commissioned a colonel by Narciso López in his Cuban filibustering expedition.

    In 1855 he joined the Juan Álvarez campaign against Santa Anna where he was commissioned a brigadier general in charge of artillery by the State of Guerrero.

    He travelled to Italy to serve under Garibaldi but soon left when his state seceded from the Union.

    Civil War and death

    At the outbreak of the Civil War, Wheat returned to New Orleans. Financed by backers of his previous Nicaragua adventures, he scoured the wharves of New Orleans to organize what became known as “Wheat’s Special Battalion”, or the “Louisiana Tigers“, a hard fighting, hard living unit that performed well on the battlefield but was renowned for its lack of discipline. The battalion, which numbered 500 men, consisted of immigrants from Ireland and Germany, as well as natives of New Orleans. Most of the men were “street toughs”. They were generally considered to be at the “bottom of the barrel” socially. They were very loyal to Wheat, who was a charismatic and remarkably humble leader of men.

    Arriving in Virginia just in time to participate in the First Battle of Bull Run, Wheat and his Tigers performed well in combat. Wheat took a Union bullet through both lungs in the battle; informed by a surgeon that there was no instance on record of a man surviving such a wound, Wheat replied, “Well then, I will put my case on record.”[2]

    When his unit was placed under the command of then Brig. Gen. Richard Taylor in November 1861, conflict arose between the Tigers and Taylor. The conflict was resolved when Taylor commanded the execution of two enlisted Tigers who had been found guilty of drunkenness and insubordination.

    Wheat and his battalion served in Jackson’s Valley Campaign and the Peninsula Campaign. He was mortally wounded at the Battle of Gaines’s Mill in June 1862. He received a battlefield interment and was reinterred in Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond, Virginia. Later in the war, the fabled “Hays’ brigade,” commanded by Harry Thompson Hays renamed themselves “The Louisiana Tigers” in honor of Wheat.

  • Sicily: An Island at the Crossroads of History

    My current read.

    Critically acclaimed author John Julius Norwich weaves the turbulent story of Sicily into a spellbinding narrative that places the island at the crossroads of world history.

    “Sicily,” said Goethe, “is the key to everything.” It is the largest island in the Mediterranean, the stepping-stone between Europe and Africa, the link between the Latin West and the Greek East. Sicily’s strategic location has tempted Roman emperors, French princes, and Spanish kings. The subsequent struggles to conquer and keep it have played crucial roles in the rise and fall of the world’s most powerful dynasties.

    Yet Sicily has often been little more than a footnote in books about other empires. John Julius Norwich’s engrossing narrative is the first to knit together all of the colorful strands of Sicilian history into a single comprehensive study. Here is a vivid, erudite, page-turning chronicle of an island and the remarkable kings, queens, and tyrants who fought to rule it. From its beginnings as a Greek city-state to its emergence as a multicultural trading hub during the Crusades, from the rebellion against Italian unification to the rise of the Mafia, the story of Sicily is rich with extraordinary moments and dramatic characters. Writing with his customary deftness and humor, Norwich outlines the surprising influence Sicily has had on world history—the Romans’ fascination with Greek civilization dates back to their sack of Sicily—and tells the story of one of the world’s most kaleidoscopic cultures in a galvanizing, contemporary way.

    This volume has been a long time coming—Norwich began to explore Sicily’s colorful history during his first visit to the island in the early 1960s. The dean of popular historians leads his readers through the millennia with the steady narrative hand of a master teacher or the world’s most learned tour guide. Like the island itself, Sicily is a book brimming with bold flavors that begs to be revisited again and again.

    Praise for Sicily

    “Suavely readable . . . The very model of a popular historian, [Norwich] writes to give pleasure to the common reader. And what pleasure it is.”—The Wall Street Journal

    “Entertaining on every page . . . There is something ancient and sorrowful in Sicily, ‘some dark, brooding quality,’ just as captivating as its spellbinding history or its beautiful and varied landscapes, from beaches to lemon groves, pine forests to volcanoes. . . . The most amiable and freewheeling of guides, Norwich will always find time for the amusing anecdote.”—The Sunday Times

    “Utterly engrossing . . . written with passion about the art and architecture of this magical island, filled with gossipy tidbits and sweeping historical theories.”—The Daily Beast

    “Dazzling . . . Norwich is an elegantly graceful and entertaining storyteller.”—Richmond Times-Dispatch

    “Charming . . . richly nuanced history relayed with enormous fondness.”—Kirkus Reviews

    “A brisk and always-lively tour.”—Open Letters Monthly

    “Norwich is deeply in love with Sicily. [His] boundless affection has inspired a determined effort to understand its painful past. The result is impressionistic, as love often is.” —The Times

    “Norwich sketches personalities vividly. . . . He does the island and the reader a generous service in providing such an amiable introduction.”—The Sunday Telegraph

    “Norwich tells [Sicily’s] long, sad but fascinating story with sympathy and brio.”—Literary Review