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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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. 

What Happened on the Junket To China in February 2020? Read Journal Article

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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Tchaikovsky cancelled

The Cancellation of Tchaikovsky 

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The theme of Tchaikovsky‘s 1812 Overture is a truly horrific event that took place when a despot lost his sense of reality. Precisely because of this, performing it is never more fitting than now, when yet another despot has gone too far. The failure to realize this signifies we have lost our relationship with the very values by which we define our culture.

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Nuremberg, 1947

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How and why was the bulwark of 20th-century medical ethics abandoned so quickly, and with so little opposition from the medical and scientific establishment? What were the immediate effects? What will be the long-term, consequences of the shift back to a crass utilitarian ethic governing science, medicine, and public health during a pandemic?

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Covid Prediction: January 2020

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Government power is not necessary. It is not likely to be effective, either. And when it is not effective, the tendency is to overreact in the opposite direction, clamping down and abusing, exactly as we’ve seen with the war on terror and China’s response to this virus, which might be as serious as bad seasonal flu outbreaks. Still, people assume that government is doing its job, government fails, and then government gets more power and does awful things with it. It’s the same story again and again.

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The Inflation Disaster Is Collateral Damage from Lockdowns 

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The pandemic response unleashed several seasons of policy recklessness, destruction, and nihilism, almost as if none of the lessons of the past applied, whether in public health or economics. If we ever emerge from this chaos, historians will surely look back in amazement that so many terrible decisions could have taken place in so many parts of the world and in such quick succession. 

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Faroe Islands: The Tiny Country that Rejected Lockdowns

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The Faroese authorities never fell prey to the irrational fear and scare tactics that unfortunately prevailed for the most part in the rest of the world. Instead, they showed the self-confidence, the respect for fact-based decision-making and consideration of the broader picture needed when confronted with an acute situation.

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The Fact-Checking Game

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If there is one element that is found in virtually all of the fascist movements of the 20th century it is their leaders’ rhetorical pose of being above the frequently off-putting hurly-burly of politics. But, of course, no one operating in the public arena is ever above politics, or for that matter, ideology, both of which are just two more examples of the structure-engendering cultural practices alluded to above. 

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The Silencing of the Scientists 

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As the pile of unshared science grows, our scientific understanding of crises like pandemics suffers from the attrition of the science it doesn’t know. It should be in the interest of all scientists to facilitate the sharing of scientific ideas to ensure no science goes unshared from fear of ridicule or public execution. 

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