No...darn...nothing doing but another book for the list.  I just started his Birth of the Modern World 1815-1830, (outstanding) when work's day to day grind and Holy Week at my two churches overwhelmed me...I shall pick it up, and knock it off before I plow back into Birth.

As a child and a young man I admired Napoleon, as I've read up on him in depth over the last year, my weather vane has been blow about, yes, "thug" is a good and apt description.

I'm blushing...thanks, most days I feel like an utter failure...but some days, for a few minutes at least, they have that gleam in their eyes and they listen, and it makes all the rest worthwhile.  Being in a private school helps.

I just wanted to do history they way I wanted to learn in school, not they way I didn't.

Indeed...

Perhaps, but then when does the 18 year not function as an adult in other cases, they can vote, they can be drafted, they can be employed on their own terms - and another negative comes to mind: assault.

No more fist fights with your peers at 18, even in 1994 we knew enough (and I can remember some thugish guys I grew up with even warning each other - "hey, don't hit or even swing at....you'll go to jail" - they knew that once you turned 18 you were game for the cops or a lawyer if you took a swing at another high school student.  
Sex should be no different, if the law is to have any meaning.
All age limitations are by nature arbitrary.  However, in a more rational age, a judge and/or jury would show some common sense, case by case discretion, and perhaps mercy - esp. with the possibility of a felony charge - today - not likely. 

A most interesting article that bears further investigation and details to be examined.  I am increasingly inclined to view our policies as a true threat to liberty and I don't know what to think about much of it, except I need to think more. 

That said, this was a ridiculous act of barbarism, and whether or not it was terrorism it needs the force of law brought against it.

However, this new paradigm 9/11 and its aftermath (which is still slowly unfolding) has created is very troubling.

Thank you, fantastic article!

My thanks!  I'm an historian by nature, and training, teacher (and musician) by trade,  so can't help myself really...
I just taught European history to my 7/8th graders this year and so I had my Napoleon's Letters (and dispatches), a broad selection of the primary material as translated by J. M. Thompson and published in the old days when The Everyman Series had real merit at close hand.  This is the 1964 printing.

As my students studied the collapse of the French Revolution, they found Napoleon so interesting, and they loved studying the Egyptian campaign, so I would spend 15 minutes a day for a week reading them his letters to help flesh him out- they all came away from that thinking he was a brillant, amazing, and rotten jerk.  They liked the Egyptian campaign so much, we spent an extra two days on it, and as a result I spent a great deal of time researching his interactions in the middle East, which I found so fascinating, even as we moved on to other topics.

PS - love the moniker...

Also, the Ottoman's were very happy to invite and sell land to Jews in the 19th century because they improved the property, were good subjects, and brought needed skills to the region.  The problems began to grow in the 14 years before World War I, and had more enlightened heads prevailed the foundation for what happened could have been avoided.  Jerusalem 1913 is an ok journalistic introduction to this period, but the best work without wading deep into the better academic literature, much of which is dominated by polemic as one might expect.

Well, consulting my collected writings of Napoleon, I note that his behavior toward Arabs, Turks, Jews and Christians in the region was entirely driven by whatever expedient was most useful for him at the moment.

Note his beheading of Cairo Rebels in Cor., vol 5, 3527; his letter to the Sultan of Dafour where he bribes him with newly purchased black slaves, ditto #4235, his anti-Christian appeal for volunteers in a letter to the Divan of Cairo, ditto #4292.

From the last I quote:

"There is no other god but God, and Mahomet is his prophet!  To the Divan of Cairo...[referring to an invading fleet] There are Russians onboard who abominate those who believe in the unity of God, because they accept the lie that there are three gods. But they will soon see that it is not the number of gods that gives them strength...If there are any Moslems among them, they are damned...who hears daily blasphemies against the One God is worse than an infidel."

I think Napoleon was an equal opportunity blasphemer and manipulator.  What I see in this series, just based on the Napoleon passage is the highly selective use of history.

Thank you for the link, I kept thinking of Nietzsche in all of this and was now I read this - the glories of Ricochet!

Ah...but who really needed better insurance in the end than the Trojans, your ruling family dead, your city in ashes, your women in chains, you think they built Troy VIIa without it?  Call your Allstate agent today!*

*This is not in fact an endorsement for any brand of insurance, and no I've never worked for, owned, or held shares in Allstate.

I think that in 300 years from now when the chapter is written about the music of the 20th century, film scores are going to be part of the meat and potatoes, as will jazz, ragtime, rock, rap, country, and world music.  Much of the "important/artistic" music and composers of the century will go down into the footnotes with about two dozen exceptions mostly composers working between 1900 and 1940, and there will be lengthy discussions of men and women whose works were ignored in our century (as well as the 20th) for being too tonal, conservative, and "romantic".

Exactly Joseph, why indeed!  Great music is great music - good music is good music - and somebody likes bad music...so humility.

Melody, really great melodies whether written by the Beatles, Irving Berlin, or Mozart are damned hard - and praise be to whom ever creates one.  What you do with a great melody, well, that's where it gets interesting.

Um Red Feline...I don't know where you base your understanding of church history on, but it is just horribly inaccurate and sounds like a low church anti-catholic Sunday school pamphlet from the early 1900's.  The Kirk acted as the de-facto parliament in Scotland well into the 18th century, (I would argue into the 1830's) it was one of the reasons James VI was so happy to become James I of England.  The idea that there was separation of state and church in early modern Scotland is ridiculous.  Your other assertions about the RC and early Christianity is just inaccurate and you should temper it because you are making strong accusations with little or no factual basis.  Plus you contradict yourself by asserting that by being a Catholic you were a traitor to the Scottish nation, (many highland clans never converted) so wouldn't this be a conflation of church and state.

Signed,

Son of Presbyterian elder, lover and frequent traveler to Scotland, Calvinist Anglican, author of a historical_thesis on the Scots-Irish Presbyterian_culture of_western_Pennsylvania.

Well, yes, we often DO disagree, and passionately  but at least I can sometimes understand why or how we came to disagree.  With those who are less knowledgable not so much (oftentimes) - hence the frustration.
Then there is the frustration because when we want to agree with a critic, conductor, performer or scholar we like or respect it can be infureating.  HOW can you hold that position, you should KNOW better.  

I now understand why many great conductors would get irate at critics who would disparage Johann Strauss Jr., Tchaikovsky  or Copland.   You try writing the Blue Danube Waltz or the Nutcracker or Rodeo and then get back to me...at the same time, I find the music I love - I really love in a way that I never used to love - love increases, hate decreases.  

Yes...and no...  There are details and insights I'm totally lacking in, but to hear people who are not musicians or who are not thorough-going musicians discuss music is a source of both joy and utter frustration.  I'm very glad to hear their enthusiasm, shocked by their opinions and their reasoning, and assertions.  Mrs. Salieri and I sometimes discuss after a concert how we sometimes miss the freshness of music - the newness, the exploration of something unknown, perhaps that is why I love Salieri, he and his work is still unknown, I'll hear it - if at all - for the first time in my life, sometimes in anyone's in over 200 years.  At the same time I wouldn't trade my knowledge and ability to appreciate and enjoy music at this level for anything.