Do empires provide a higher standard of living? In theory, this might seem so. Empires allow goods, capital, and labor to circulate within a much larger land area, thus creating economies of scale and matching supply and demand more efficiently. Empires can also build public works—roads, canals, aqueducts, etc.—that are beyond the reach of smaller... Read More

There is a thread of thought going back to antiquity and revived by Nietzsche that blames Christianity for the fall of the Roman Empire. Christ and his followers are thus held responsible for replacing pagan virtues with ‘slave values’ of submission and pacifism. In reality, and long before the triumph of Christianity, it was pagan... Read More

Natural selection has altered at least 7% of our genome over the last 40 thousand years. And it has been doing so at an accelerating rate, particularly after agriculture replaced hunting and gathering less than ten thousand years ago. At that time, the rate of genetic change may have risen over a hundred-fold (Hawks et... Read More