A French nobleman named Alexis de Tocqueville traveled to study America's then fifty-year-old democracy. The book that followed, Democracy In America, would soon be known as one of the most important ever written about democracy and essential reading for those interested in American history. Tocqueville starts off by giving his philosophy on government and democratic ideals before easing into an analysis of America's land, history, and style of government. Millions of men are marching at once towards the same horizon; their language, their religion, their manners differ, their object is the same. The gifts of fortune are promised in the West, Read More

Three years ago when I became a college freshman, I had a certain plan in mind: become a business major, specifically accounting. After graduating, I would get my CPA, and work for three years wasting my life as a public accountant, until I would find a nice 9-5 job, a wife, and a suburban home like many beta males of this day and age. As I progressed through college, this mindset slowly chipped away, and I began to stop taking advice of other people who thought they knew what was best for me. This eventually landed me into quantitative economics, specifically Read More

Perspective is one of the most important lessons of the cognitive disciplines. It also weighs heavily in the balanced consideration of moral problems. What may seem to be one thing to one man, is likely something else to another. It can be disquieting for us to see the world as others see it, for every man's window overlooks his own tangled garden of direful secrets. Several anecdotes illustrate this in amusing ways. The Roman writer Aulus Gellius (Noctes Atticae V.5) relates a conversation that took place between the Carthaginian general Hannibal and King Antiochus of Syria, in whose court Hannibal had Read More