You Have No Right To Turn Away

In an 1842 letter to Ralph Waldo Emerson, the Scottish writer Thomas Carlyle chastised Emerson, saying, "A man has no right to say to his generation, turning away from it, 'Be Damned!' It is the whole past and the whole future, this same cotton-spinning, dollar-hunting, canting and shrieking, very wretched generation of ours. Come back into it, I tell you." What did he mean by this? And what importance does Carlyle's admonition have for us today? We discuss.

In this podcast I describe unforgettable images that emerge from the aftermaths of certain battles. We discuss Livy's description of the battlefield after Cannae, a scene in Dante, and an anecdote from the American Civil War.

In this podcast we take a quote from Seneca, discuss its meaning, and apply it to some modern life lessons.

Several days ago I published a new, annotated translation of the "Stratagems" of Frontinus. It is a vastly underappreciated classic of military theory. In this podcast, I present the work and the author. I also explain why "Stratagems" is unique, and why it is a superb manual on leadership and how to prevail in any conflict.

In this podcast we discuss the story of "Akulka's Husband," which is found in Fyodor Dostoyevsky's novel "The House of the Dead." What does the story mean, and what conclusions can be drawn from it?

When you give control of your work to third parties, you must take care that they do not corrupt or destroy what you have created. We use the story of the development and issuance of the M16 rifle in the U.S. military as a tragic example.

We tend to think that the problems of others do not affect us. But we are all connected in one way or another. And when your neighbor's house in on fire, it's your problem too. You have a responsibility to act like a compassionate human being.

Sometimes even a decisive victory is not enough. Your victory may immediately be followed by greater challenges that test you to the ultimate limit. There is no such thing as reaching an "end zone." We discuss the Battle of Cunaxa in 401 B.C., where the Greek mercenaries of Cyrus won the battle, but immediately realized that their fight for survival had just begun. One man, a natural leader named Xenophon the Athenian, then stepped forward to assume the responsibility of command.

This podcast is a book review of "General Eoin O'Duffy: The Political Life Of An Irish Firebrand," by Jack Traynor. This book is a scholarly but brief political biography of a key figure of Irish politics from the War of Independence through the end of the 1930s. We discuss the book and its subject matter, and venture some thoughts. What does O'Duffy's life teach us about the influence of character on a man's fate?

If you encounter someone who claims to have a perfect record, and says he has never lost in some field of endeavor, take the claim with a grain of salt. Statements like this often do not tell the whole story. If you want to learn and grow, you need to know that you're going to lose. And you will probably lose a lot! Someone with a perfect record may not have taken sufficient risks. If you cherry-pick all your battles, and never challenge yourself, you're not going to learn and grow.