Essays – Page 4 – Tragedy and Farce

The History of Happiness: Are People Getting Happier?

Over the last few centuries, the lives of people have improved in almost every quantifiable way. Education, lifespan, living standards, hygiene, and countless other factors have steadily… Read more “The History of Happiness: Are People Getting Happier?”

It’s no secret that J. R. R. Tolkien borrowed from his experience in the trenches of World War One when creating Middle Earth. A month ago, I… Read more “More than Mordor: Tolkien and the First World War”

When a war ends, the people are always quick to celebrate the returning soldiers and to mourn the dead. Yet few ever devote much thought to disabled… Read more “The Forgotten History of Disabled Veterans”

War can have a huge effect on a nation’s demographics, but not always in the way you would expect. The First World War (1914-1918) was the world’s… Read more “Mini Take: The Demographic Shadow of the First World War in Germany”

Welcome to Part Two of my series about just war theory as applied to George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire. In the last… Read more “Just War Theory in Game of Thrones: Part II”

Disclaimer – the following article contains spoilers for George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire Series, as well as HBO’s Game of Thrones. Beware!… Read more “Just War Theory in Game of Thrones: Part I”

When, if ever, can actions performed by soldiers be heroic? In the final episode of his long running series on the Pacific Theater of World War II,… Read more “Heroism and Warfare: A Dan Carlin Rebuttal”

Child soldiers are one of the most disturbing yet prevalent trends in warfare today. Globally, the number of child soldiers has grown steadily since the 1980s, with… Read more “Child Soldiers: The Reasoning Behind the Horror”

As long as humans have studied history, we have tried to simplify its broad sweep into theories. Great man theory, first articulated by Thomas Carlyle in the… Read more “What the Swedish Empire Tells Us About History”

Welcome back to Part II of my two part discussion on whether J. R. R. Tolkien’s Middle Earth qualifies as a medieval world (Part I here). Last… Read more “Middle Earth Isn’t Medieval: Part II”