ORIGINAL TRANSLATION

Lessons to the Empress on the Origins of French Civilization - Numa Denis Fustel de Coulanges

In 1870, Fustel de Coulanges delivered to Empress Eugenie of France a series of lessons on the history of French civilization. As in his best-known work The Ancient City, de Coulanges began with Indo-European prehistory, gradually tracing the development of French society from its origins in Aryan custom, Greek philosophy, Roman law, and Medieval Christendom, with a special emphasis on the emergence and influence of political institutions.

This is a unique book in that the words were not intended to be published in written form. They are, rather, more like a transcript of lectures from an exclusive and intimate setting, as if you were sitting in his classroom at Strasbourg, or (to be exact) in the private study of a European sovereign.

Adapted from de Coulanges' notes and published in 1930, Lessons to the Empress represents a single-volume summary of the thought of one of the most influential and transformative historians of the 19th century, here translated to English for the first time.

Preface is linked below, and the rest of the chapters will be posted as I complete them.

https://x.com/Antweegonus/status/1835449007839027691

Thread on the WWII aerial bombing campaigns. Main sources throughout will be Richard Overy’s authoritative history, “The Bombing War: Europe 1939-1945” (2013) and earlier work "The Air War: 1939-1945" (1980), as well as his online lectures on the subject.
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Like anything else in the study of history, context is everything. As we saw e.g. with Pearl Harbor, to understand the decisions of military planners we must know the information available at the time and their key operating assumptions.
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https://x.com/Antweegonus/status/1663311559723040769

What multiculturalism is not:
- foreign food and diverse skin tones

What multiculturalism is: 🧵 Palestinians in London cheering over the rape and murder of Israeli civilians

https://twitter.com/drproudman/status/1710707717520703813

Real leaders of men have been absent from our highest ranks for generations. It’s not that Washingtons, Pattons, and Lees don’t exist anymore, but that they are barred from power in a system that actively selects against men like them.🧵
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https://twitter.com/helen_of_roy/status/1696605022430072993

Machiavelli famously divides leaders into the two broad categories of Foxes, who rely on wit and subterfuge to achieve their goals; and Lions, who rely on strength, force, and stubbornness. It's obvious which type corresponds most closely to the modern American elite.
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In 1558, Saint Teresa of Avila received a vision of hell. Her account is simple and concise, yet perhaps the most bone-chilling of its kind on record.

I recount it here.
1/ Teresa was one day in prayer, and with no warning found herself transported. Highly advanced in prayer and already well-attuned to the divine voice, she understood immediately that it was God’s will that she “should see the place which the devils kept in readiness for [her].”
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The most revealing, succinct exposition of socialist pathologies I've ever seen is Oscar Wilde's 1891 essay "The Soul of a Man Under Socialism"

Lurking just below the surface of every socialist virtue is a vice: hatred, selfishness, envy, resentment.

books.google.com/books?id=johYA…
1/ Care for a vague, impersonal "humanity" as an excuse to shirk one's own duty to his fellow man.

Dostoevsky: "The more I love humanity in general the less I love man in particular. [...] As soon as anyone is near me, his personality disturbs me and restricts my freedom."
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Happy Memorial Day.

Roosevelt did Pearl Harbor. Mega 🧵
1/ The common mythology of Pearl Harbor goes something like this:
Prior to December 7th, 1941, the FDR admin was engaged in ongoing, good faith negotiations with Japan. Then the latter carried out her dastardly, unprovoked surprise attack, forcing the US into entering WWII.
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Theodore Parker and the de-Christianization of Christianity 🧵

One of the most important Americans you’ve never heard of:
1/ I previously discussed the long and abiding influence of Unitarianism on American history as the primary religious progenitor of modern Progressivism (see threads linked here for an introduction to the topic, though they only scratch the surface)
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https://twitter.com/antweegonus/status/1649975784881152002

It occurred to me that my previous thread addressed the “what,” but fell short in addressing the “why” of Unitarian/UU dominance. What was it about Unitarianism (and its successor systems) that allowed it to so consistently beat out its competitors? I briefly address: 🧵
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https://twitter.com/Antweegonus/status/1649975784881152002

As Moldbug maintains, the generational victories of liberal protestantism are essentially adaptive rather than conscious processes. In other words, there are contingent societal forces placing selective pressure on ever-more liberal mutations of the same liberal gene.
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UNITARIANISM 🧵

“All human conflict is ultimately theological.” —Cardinal Henry Manning

Here I will discuss the claim (popularized most notably by Moldbug) that Unitarianism is, and always has been, the de facto civic religion of the United States.
1/ First, on Protestantism generally:

On the question of why the US moves further left with each generation, many have noted Protestantism's ingredient leftist tendency: rejection of capital-T Tradition & ancient hierarchy, primacy of personal interpretation of Scripture, etc.
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