Louis XVI makes a break for it. France passes a new Constitution into law. And the storm clouds continue to grow around the French Revolution.

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Riots in Paris provoke unrest, while in the countryside French peasants recoil at attacks upon the Catholic Church.

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In his own day, the ancient philosopher Diogenes the Cynic had a reputation for eccentricity, heckling his fellow philosophers in the marketplace, living in a clay pot, and relieving himself in public. Since his death in 323 BCE, devoted followers made him and his ideas famous the world over. But what we think we know about Diogenes remains distorted and sanitized.

In Diogenes, classicist Inger N.I. Kuin scours all existing evidence of Diogenes and his followers to offer an in-depth account of Diogenes’ life and thought, revealing a man whose innovative ideas about power, death, nature, and the body have much to teach the contemporary world. He pioneered a vision of simplicity and autonomy in his day-to-day life, stressing the importance of living in the here and now, and of always thinking for oneself. Diogenes stands apart as history’s first recorded critic of slavery and a proud exile from polite society whose challenging thought proved foundational for the Stoics and their successors.

Diogenes rehabilitates Diogenes as a compelling thinker for the twenty-first century, one who demands that we look at our society with fresh eyes and be unafraid of change—starting with ourselves.

Bread shortages force the Revolution's hand.

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The French Revolution gets serious as the people of Paris rise up and storm the Bastille. 

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In this bonus interview, I sit down with Phillips Payson O'Brien and we discuss his latest book: War and Power: Who Wins Wars—and Why. 

For nearly two centuries, international relations have been premised on the idea of the “Great Powers.” As the thinking went, these mighty states—the European empires of the nineteenth century, the United States and the USSR during the Cold War—were uniquely able to exert their influence on the world stage because of their overwhelming military capabilities. But as military historian Phillips Payson O’Brien argues in War and Power, this conception of power fails to capture the more complicated truth about how wars are fought and won.

Our focus on the importance of large, well-equipped armies and conclusive battles has obscured the foundational forces that underlie military victories and the actual mechanics of successful warfare. O’Brien suggests a new framework of “full-spectrum powers,” taking into account all of the diverse factors that make a state strong—from economic and technological might, to political stability, to the complex logistics needed to maintain forces in the field.
Drawing on examples ranging from Napoleon’s France to today’s ascendant China, War and Power offers a critical new understanding of what makes a power truly great. It is vital reading in today’s perilous world.

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An oath on a tennis court, of all things, sparks the French Revolution.

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Efforts to reform France under Louis XV and Louis XVI fail, plunging the kingdom into the flood of revolution. 

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Today I sit down with historian Michael Livingston and talk about one of my favorite subjects: the Hundred Years War.

Henry V at Agincourt. Edward III at Crécy. The Black Prince at Poitiers. Joan of Arc at Orléans. The period we call “the Hundred Years War” was a cascade of violence bursting with some of the most famous figures and fascinating fights in history. The central combatants, England and France, bore witness to uncountable deaths, unbelievable tragedy, and uncompromising glory. But there was much more to this period than a struggle between two nations for dominance.  

Bloody Crowns tells a new story of how medieval Europe was consumed, not by a hundred years’ war, but by two full centuries of war from 1292 to 1492. During those years, blood was spilled far beyond the borders of England and France. The Low Countries became war zones. Italy was swept up. So, too, the Holy Roman Empire, the Iberian Peninsula, Scotland, and Wales. The conflict drove enormous leaps forward in military technology and organization, political systems and national identities, laying the groundwork for the modern world.

With a keen eye for military intrigue and drama, Bloody Crowns critically revises our understanding of how modern Europe arose from medieval battlefields.

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Also known as the Ancien Regimé, the system of France going into the revolution was maddeningly complex and, seemingly, designed to fail. 

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