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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The Grave Dangers of Politicizing Medicine

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If the authorities in the West make politicizing medicine a policy, it could quickly destroy the doctor-patient trust beyond repair. We should never allow what the CCP did in China happen in the free world. We still have some time. We should remain aware and be willing to fight to preserve the integrity of modern medicine.

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Covid Policy Tactics Were Borrowed from the Vietnam War

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Eventually, a consensus will emerge that the Coronavirus response was, like the Vietnam War, a colossal, politically-driven, panic-driven, intergenerationally unjust, deeply destructive overreaction that caused far more harm than they prevented.Often—and certainly regarding both Vietnam and Coronavirus—treading lightly would have been far better than intervening so aggressively and foolishly. Far less would have been far more.

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How the Shanghai Lockdown Serves the CCP

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China’s leaders visit as much hardship on their people as they want, whenever they want. The global COVID containment system, like the global communist system, is itself propaganda; though the brutality is real, individual human beings are mere set pieces in service to a narrative with a goal that was never obtainable.

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The Unmasking of America

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What lockdowns and mandates have done to society is a painful truth, and one that we will be dealing with for many years. As much as we all just want it to go away, and as much as we all have great cause to celebrate this day, as much as the real of the mask mandate represents a symbolic end, no one should lose sight of the deeper problem: all of this happened to us, and not only to us but to billions of people the world over. 

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Here’s Why No One Wants to Talk About Sweden

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From a human perspective, it was easy to understand why so many were reluctant to face the numbers from Sweden. For the inevitable conclusion must be that millions of people had been denied their freedom, and millions of children had had their education disrupted, all for nothing.

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Is Liberalism a Lost Cause?

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Is liberalism a lost cause? Many say so. Many today dream that it would stay gone, forever doomed to be regarded as a failed experiment in a world longing for authoritarian control whether by the right, the left, the technocratic elite, or something else. Demoralized and depressed by so much “shock and awe,” and living in times of ubiquitous surveillance and unrelenting diktat, many others are inclined to give up the dream of freedom completely.

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Plagues and the Unleashing of Power

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We can see the long arm of history reaching from the times of the Black Death to modern epidemics, where coercion and state control are accepted by a terrified public and conveniently deemed by a power-hungry elite to be the only acceptable way to combat natural disasters, even at the risk of tremendous and unnecessary collateral damage.

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What Happened on the Junket To China in February 2020?

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There are so many questions and far too few answers. This one junket is just the beginning but it is a massively important one. We know now that the idea that China managed the virus well is a complete myth (it did not “demonstrate that the infection can be controlled”). The countries that locked down less or not at all had better outcomes in every area: health, economics, culture, and education. 

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We Need Truth and Justice

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The free world is stuck tallying the costs of its catastrophic foray into totalitarianism. Most of these costs were predicted well before the policies were ever implemented. Hundreds of millions have gone hungry. An entire generation of children has been abused and traumatized. Young people were robbed of some of their brightest years. Small businesses and those who depended on them lost their livelihoods. Trillions of dollars were transferred from the world’s poorest to its very richest.

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What’s Going On In China: Interview with Michael Senger

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Michael Senger, attorney and author of Snake Oil, has led the way in drawing attention to the role of the Chinese Communist Party in 2020 influencing nearly every country in the world to lock down economies in order to control a virus. Here he reacts to the new lockdowns in China and the possible motivations behind the remarkable attack on the rights and liberties of the people of Shanghai, and possible divisions within the CCP.

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