Utopia, you are standing in it!

Otto Eduard Leopold von Bismarck, (April 1, 1815 — July 30, 1898) was a conservative German statesman and diplomat. Later created Prince of Bismarck, Count of Bismarck-Schönhausen, Duke of Lauenburg

In 1847, Bismarck, aged thirty-two, was chosen as a representative to the newly created Prussian legislature, the Vereinigter Landtag. There, he gained a reputation as a royalist and reactionary politician with a gift for stinging rhetoric; he openly advocated the idea that the monarch had a divine right to rule.

In March 1848, Prussia faced a revolution (one of the revolutions of 1848 across Europe), which completely overwhelmed King Friedrich Wilhelm IV. The monarch, though initially inclined to use armed forces to suppress the rebellion, ultimately declined to leave Berlin for the safety of military headquarters at Potsdam. Bismarck later recorded that there had been a “rattling of sabres in their scabbards” from Prussian officers when they learned that the…

We learn of the first thirteen popes from Irenaeus of Lyons, who documented their colorful mythology from Peter to Eleutherius. This was a time of great paranoia for Christians following the Great Fire in Rome and the subsequent Neronian nightmare as well as a resurgence of violent persecutions under Emperor Domitian (AD 81-96) who promoted a delusional form of self-deification, dominus et deus or “master and god,” and began torturing the new religion once again. This was the context in which the fevered Book of Revelation was likely written –a text which gleefully celebrates the downfall of Rome and subversively refers to Jesus as a “King” in contrast to the Roman Emperor. The Emperors Trajan, Hadrian, and Antoninus Pius are generally remembered as more tolerant rulers, however the crowds in Rome still raged for more bodies to fill the ongoing circus festivals. Two of the most important Christian leaders were…

Nothing focuses thinking on energy policy like not having heat, light and power on tap.

With Europe now hostage to its aggressive Eastern neighbour – thanks to a maniacal obsession with intermittent wind and solar and the need to back it up with oil and gas – policy wonks of all descriptions have started talking about energy supplies in the present, rather than the future, tense.

The reason for the recent uptick in the intensity of thought isn’t difficult to find: if Vlad turns off the gas tap, large tracts of Europe will be plunged into freezing darkness, particularly the Germans, who, years ago, committed to killing off their reliable nuclear and coal-fired power plants.

Now, though, faced with the reality of actually trying to rely exclusively on wind and solar, even Germany’s Greens are talking about maintaining their ability to produce coal-fired and nuclear power for the foreseeable future…

The following are some notes I cobbled together upon reading John Julius Norwich’s 2011 single volume history of the papacy Absolute Monarchs: A History of the Papacy. The book is a delightful survey of this most curious and enduring institution –the papacy– offering erudite and concise summaries of key moments in the unfolding character and history of the papacy. I also used Diarmaid MacCulloch’s 2009 work of popular history, Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years as a reference as well. After recently completing a survey of the kings and queens of England using several different sources (including Winston Churchill’s History of English Speaking Peoples) I decided to turn my gaze toward that other present-day monarchical tradition spanning two millennia. How is it that a religion which venerates the “meek” and the “poor in spirit?” has managed to elevate a supreme pontiff who governs the faithful like a global…