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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  • Vaccines

Police Charged Thousands of People For Petty COVID Violations

By / / , , / 11 minute read / Articles
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The discretionary powers granted to state authorities to curtail the spread of the virus have yet to be fully documented or interrogated. Did these tactics accomplish anything that benefitted public health? Particularly with a year and a half of hindsight, it’s doubtful. Unless “needlessly hassling a bunch of people” somehow counts as a public health triumph.

Police Charged Thousands of People For Petty COVID Violations Read Journal Article

Rev. Cotton Mather and the 18th-Century Battle Over Smallpox Inoculation

By / / , / 8 minute read / Articles
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One of the most fascinating battles between opposing views about variolation occurred during the New England smallpox epidemic of 1721. When a ship brought smallpox to Boston, authorities responded by ordering a cleaning of the streets and isolation of cases. It did not work.

Rev. Cotton Mather and the 18th-Century Battle Over Smallpox Inoculation Read Journal Article

Escrava Anastácia

The Mask of Your Enslavement: The Image, History, and Meaning of Escrava Anastácia

By / / , , , / 23 minute read / Articles
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While there are clear specificities between the suffering of Africans under the system of chattel slavery and the deprivation of civil liberties endured by most citizens around the world during the current pandemic panic, Anastácia reminds us of certain transhistorical constants in the process of dehumanization and subjugation of populations through the gagging and muzzling of their bodies to quell their protestations. 

The Mask of Your Enslavement: The Image, History, and Meaning of Escrava Anastácia Read Journal Article

Birx Flip Script

Dr. Deborah Birx’s Failed Attempt to Flip the Script

By / / , / 12 minute read / Articles
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She makes some very serious charges, while evading responsibility for her central role in the egregiously botched response. Birx not only pushed Trump to enact lockdowns. She personally called health officials in every state and demanded that they do the same. And did this for months. They complied based on her position and authority. 

Dr. Deborah Birx’s Failed Attempt to Flip the Script Read Journal Article

Vaccine Mandates are the New Prohibition

By / / , / 11 minute read / Articles
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To garner support for these radical infringements of our most fundamental rights, politicians and bureaucrats have engaged in shameless “othering,” telling us that certain groups of “bad” people put other groups of “good” people in mortal danger. These tactics have been used many times before in our country and others. “Ugly” doesn’t even begin to describe the results.

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The Treason of the Healers

By / / , , / 9 minute read / Articles
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During the middle years of the 20th century, the social privilege, deference and power previously granted to clerics, and then to writers, was bequeathed to the science-based healers. While they have done much to improve our lives with the money and authority we have given them, they have—even though they seem largely unaware of it—now fallen into a grave state of moral decadence.

The Treason of the Healers Read Journal Article

Your Booster Life: How Big Pharma Adopted the Subscription Model of Profitability

By / / , , , , / 76 minute read / Articles
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What if, by depriving us of normal life, those who stand to gain from vaccines can forever cement themselves at the center of society by providing an artificial replacement for what our immune systems used to do to protect us against common respiratory viruses back when we were still allowed to live normal lives? 

Your Booster Life: How Big Pharma Adopted the Subscription Model of Profitability Read Journal Article

The Decay of Science in the Age of Lockdowns

By / / , , / 6 minute read / Articles
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Because of political strategies using slander and ad hominem attacks, many physicians and scientists have been reluctant to speak out despite their reservations about pandemic policies. The error-strewn attacks in British Medical Journal demonstrate what awaits academics who do challenge prevailing views. 

The Decay of Science in the Age of Lockdowns Read Journal Article

The Frightened Class

By / / , , / 8 minute read / Articles
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For most of recorded time prosperity and education have been the gateway to a life of relative freedom from worry. But now, the people who most enjoy these benefits are, it seems, wracked with anxiety and, in the not infrequent way of many people suffering that plague, and hellbent on sharing their misery with others.

The Frightened Class Read Journal Article

The Origins and Development of Upside-down America

By / / , , / 17 minute read / Articles
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We have called this Progressive Fascism because at bottom it turns the very idea of America upside-down by subordinating the citizen to the state and by attaining the collective good through the centralized exercise of political power rather than the liberty-based endeavors of a free people.

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tyranny

The Truth About Tyranny

By / / , , , , / 8 minute read / Articles
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Any regime that wants to stay in power needs to know this secret to hegemony: the desire to cleanse society of the enemy is what compels compliance. Every tyranny in history has depended on recruits to its own ranks from within the culture. They believe the lie knowing full well that it is a lie. The lie allows them to participate in the purge. They become the willing executioners. It’s been true throughout history, regardless of the particular and shifting desiderata of the despotism of the moment. 

The Truth About Tyranny Read Journal Article

The Fight for Civilization: Two Interviews with Jeffrey Tucker

By / / , / 2 minute read / Video/Podcast
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SHARE | PRINT | EMAILTwo lengthy interviews with Brownstone founder and president are now online. The first is with the Bill Walton show, and the second is with journalist and author Robin Koerner. Excerpts from the above: “We’ve dealt with pandemics in the past. In the modern age and the 20th

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