History

History articles feature analysis of historical context in relation to censorship, policy, technology, media, economics, and social life.

All Brownstone Institute articles on the topic of history are translated into multiple languages.

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Conspiracy Theories

Conspiracy Theories Become Conspiracy Facts

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Interventions rooted in panic, driven by political machinations, and using all the levers of state power to terrify citizens and muzzle critics in the end needlessly killed massive numbers of the most vulnerable while putting the vast low-risk majority under house arrest. The benefits are questionable but the harms are increasingly obvious. The Johnson government in general and Hancock in particular revalidate Lord Acton’s astute observation that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. 

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lockdown files

The UK Narrative Falls Apart with Leaked Messages

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The new leak is the most damning revelation to come so far from the Daily Telegraph’s recently-announced ‘Lockdown Files,’ which are based on an archive of over 100,000 messages sent between Hancock and other officials. Journalist Isabel Oakeshott ostensibly obtained the WhatsApp messages to assist with a book about Hancock, comprising the biggest leak of UK Government data in over a decade and shedding new light on the UK’s lockdowns, mandates, and fear messaging.

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fear narrative

How Did All of this Happen?

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All the key stakeholders “bought in.” Even if some people eventually realized some of the narratives may have been dubious or false, they’d already risked their reputations and careers by zealously pushing or endorsing these narratives … so they weren’t going to suddenly admit they might have been wrong. In retrospect, how “they” made all the madness happen was surprisingly easy.

How Did All of this Happen? Read Journal Article

Fauci

Fauci Wanted Universal Human Separation Forever

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One might suppose it would be top headlines that the man who crafted the Covid response for the world was merely using this as the lever to reverse 12,000 years of human history. Indeed in that sense, “going medieval” is a mere step in a long road back. Forget the Constitution. Forget the Enlightenment. Forget even the golden age of the Roman Empire. Fauci wants to take us back long before there are any actual historical records: a conjectural Rousseauian state of nature where we lived by foraging for food around us and nothing more. 

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Wuhan

How We Know it Started in Wuhan

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It does appear that the December outbreak in Wuhan where it was first detected was the largest to that date. In addition, the following month Wuhan was the first place to experience an explosive outbreak that taxed the health services, some weeks before anywhere else. The fact that it was ahead of the curve in these larger outbreaks is a strong indicator that the virus had been there longest and originally emerged there.

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evil delusions

Have the Ancient Gods Returned?

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None of that fracturing or mismanagement of normal history took place in the global rush to “lockdowns,” the rollout of COVID hysteria, of “mandates,” masking, of global child abuse, of legacy media lying internationally at scale and all lying in one direction, of thousands of “trusted messengers” parroting a single script, and of forced or coerced mRNA injections into at least half of the humans on Planet Earth. What is happening?

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contagion of cowardice

A Contagion of Cowardice 

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More than people right now are willing to admit, civil society as we knew it collapsed over these three years. A massive purge has taken place within all the commanding heights. This will affect career choices, political alliances, philosophical commitments, and the structure of society for decades to come. he rebuilding and reconstruction that must take place is going to rely – perhaps as it always has – on a small minority who see both the problem and the solution.

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authoritarianism

Five Lessons from Three Years of Authoritarianism 

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In retrospect, America in February of 2020 seems like a libertarian, innocent age compared to our current one. We did not live under the shadow of possible nuclear holocaust. Everyday life was devoid of the nanny-state elements of our current age. Many of us had gone through life never quite knowing what the destructive power of a government run amok looked like. 

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covid policymakers

Landmarks on the Road to Covid Tyranny

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For both Bush and Covid policymakers, fear-mongering razed limits to their sway. As long as enough people can be frightened, then almost everyone can be subjugated. Americans’ rights and liberties will not be safe until politicians and their henchmen are forced to submit to the law and the Constitution.

Landmarks on the Road to Covid Tyranny Read Journal Article