22 Posts Found

In 1908, Indian revolutionary Taraknath Das wrote to Leo Tolstoy, by then one of the most famous public figures in the world, asking for the author’s support in India’s independence from British colonial rule. On December 14, Tolstoy, who had spent the last twenty years seeking the answers to life’s greatest moral questions, was moved to reply in a long letter, which Das published in … [ Read more ]

Author: Leo Tolstoy | Source: The Marginalian (Brain Pickings) (August 21, 2014) | Subjects: Articles & Links, Excerpts, Freedom | Liberty, History, Life & Society, Love, Sociology | Anthropology

As the president wrestles with policy decisions about Afghanistan, Iran, and elsewhere, pundits try to pigeonhole him: Is he a realist or an idealist? But the best American foreign policy has always been both, mixing moral aspiration with unsentimental prudence. Obama’s most useful model may be a predecessor who was a realist wrongly pegged as an idealist – Woodrow Wilson

Author: David M. Kennedy | Source: The Atlantic (January2010) | Subjects: Articles & Links, Foreign Policy, History, Politics & Public Policy