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Jan 10, 2025 | 
rsn.org | S. Frederick Starr
Western observers are neglecting important developments: Judging by what is being said on Russia’s home front, Putin has already lost the war and the only question is what face-saving measures can be extracted through a settlement. Since February 24, 2022, when Russian forces poured into Ukraine, Western observers and governments have concentrated their attention on the fighting front.
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Dec 7, 2024 | 
washingtonindependentreviewofbooks.com | S. Frederick Starr
Among Biruni’s contributions to science: the concept of specific gravity central to the field of chemistry; the full development of trigonometry (the sines, cosines, and tangents of triangles that facilitate distance measurements); a taxonomy of plants that Starr calls unmatched until Carl Linnaeus gave us all those Latin names for living things seven centuries later; and the disentanglement of astronomy from astrology.
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Dec 4, 2024 | 
nationalinterest.org | S. Frederick Starr
What if Russia loses its war on Ukraine? Some consider the question frivolous because, as President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev of Kazakhstan has asserted, “Russia cannot be defeated in a military sense.” Such thinking has prompted Tokayev, as well as many in the West, to advocate for a deal with Putin, one that would more than likely result in Kyiv’s loss of land that the United Nations, the United States, and Europe all consider Ukraine’s sovereign territory.
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Nov 24, 2024 | 
nationalinterest.org | S. Frederick Starr
Since February 24, 2022, when Russian forces poured into Ukraine, Western observers and governments have concentrated their attention on the fighting front. Intelligence agencies in Britain, Poland, the Baltic countries, and the United States have provided their governments with steady updates on the action, while independent bodies like the Institute for the Study of War in Washington have done as well or better for the public at large.
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Jan 4, 2024 | 
americanpurpose.com | Richard Aldous |Nicole Penn |S. Frederick Starr |Matt Hanson
Saxophone Colossus: The Life and Music of Sonny Rollinsby Aiden Levy (Hachette Books, 784 pp., $24.49)Great artists tend to be perfectionists. This usually goes double for musicians, working as they do within the infinitely malleable medium of sound. Jazz musicians arguably have it the hardest of all because improvisation is at the heart of the medium.
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Jan 3, 2024 | 
americanpurpose.com | Richard Aldous |Nicole Penn |S. Frederick Starr
You've successfully subscribed to American Purpose Great! Next, complete checkout for full access to American Purpose Welcome back! You've successfully signed in. Success! Your account is fully activated, you now have access to all content. Long gone are the days of steak dinners, piano bars, and free alcohol on flights—not to mention widely expanding markets and strong competition.
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Jan 3, 2024 | 
americanpurpose.com | Natalie Gonnella-Platts |Jeffrey Gedmin |S. Frederick Starr
Vladimir Putin, having sidelined or destroyed all his domestic opponents, real or imagined, now surrounds himself with Romano-Byzantine pomp and grandeur. The theatrical civic festivals, processions of venerable prelates, cult of statues, embarrassing shows of piety, endless laying of wreaths, and choreographed entrances down halls lined with soldiers standing at attention—all trace directly back to czarism, to Byzantine Constantinople, and ultimately to imperial Rome.
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Jan 2, 2024 | 
americanpurpose.com | Richard Aldous |Nicole Penn |S. Frederick Starr |Francis Fukuyama
I haven’t posted a piece for Frankly Fukuyama in a few weeks because I was involved in an accident at the end of November that put me out of commission for a few weeks, but I’m hopefully now on the mend. There are a lot of issues out there I’ve been meaning to discuss—for example, expanding on my observations about the impact of scale economies, and the return of Schedule F—but I want to talk about the state of global democracy in 2023 and as we look ahead to 2024.
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Dec 20, 2023 | 
americanpurpose.com | Richard Aldous |Nicole Penn |S. Frederick Starr |Noah Berlatsky
Most Hollywood Holocaust films are supposed to be emotionally difficult because they encourage us to identify with victims. In movies like Schindler’s List (1993) and The Zookeeper’s Wife (2017), our point-of-view character is a heroic gentile who looks at suffering and shows us how to feel it ourselves. The horrors, by empathetic transferal, are visited on the viewer. We feel the Holocaust as if it is inflicted upon us, and we then act, with the hero, to ameliorate the pain.
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Dec 20, 2023 | 
americanpurpose.com | Richard Aldous |Nicole Penn |S. Frederick Starr |Linda Sieg
Japan’s retired Emperor Akihito, who turns ninety years-old this month, had a clear mission during his three decades on the throne. That was to pray for the souls of those who died in World War II—whatever their nationality—and to keep alive the memories of a tragic conflict fought in his father’s name, so that it would never be repeated.
