The long shadow of the New World Information and Communication Order—the sibling of the NIEO

On the value organizing using your own brain:
🧵
For my PhD, I read a mountain of books and over 2,000 European printed and manuscript maps & atlases c.1450-1650 (and some older ones).

I identified 200-ish maps/atlases with distinctive imagery of peoples of the Americas (not just stick figures).
1/

Political Economy from Pufendorf to Marx | Cambridge University Press & Assessment

Essential reading for historians of European political thought - Istvan Hont, Political Economy from Pufendorf to Marx (2026)

www.cambridge.org/gb/universit...

A crow kicks a small ball of snow. They then start rolling it into a larger ball while saying "trust the process...". They kick more snow into a pile and stick a branch in repeating "trust the process" to itself. They place small stones. They say "Phew!" and stand back to look at its creation, which we see now is a mess of a project that looks somewhat like a melted bird. The final panel the crow says "haha it's terrible".

Finished is better than terrible #oldknees

🦌 ❄️❄️

Next week a crew from Barcelona will be dropping into a Helsinki that’s averaging 0°C and getting about six hours of daylight. Not out of masochism, but for a conference with dozens of intellectual historians — which, admittedly, isn’t that different. I’ll try to bring back a Rudolph on the way home

My article on the fraught politics of desire in the history of radical feminism has now been published at Hypatia. www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

On the Pull of Transitional Despotism on the Plebeian Left. McCormick and Isaiah Berlin on Machiavelli, Agathocles & Glory. John P.

On the Pull of Transitional Despotism on the Plebeian Left. McCormick and Isaiah Berlin on Machiavelli, Agathocles & Glory (with a shout out to @jcherniss.bsky.social) open.substack.com/pub/digressi...

Look, this is an abomination, void of any grasp of humans or humanity. Kalshi should not exist (which is why there are lawsuits in 11 states against Kalshi for illegal gambling etc. this alone should spook investors 🤷‍♀️). But let's not forget: all venture capital is about making bets & wagers. 1/

Croquetas a todas luces congeladas, chistorras y morcillas del Mercadona, bollo precocinado, huevos fritos mal hechos (yema rota, cuajada, puntilla tamaño enaguas). Y sin cubiertos porque se conoce que usar tenedores es de maricones. Tanta pasta para comer peor que un estudiante.

Politics and the Economy Cambridge Core - Ancient Philosophy - Politics and the Economy

We live in a funny world - this little book is now apparently "out", though I haven't seen physical copies or so. Instead, I was alerted by a Mastodon bot written by a colleague that notices new publications by our faculty members.
Well, there it is :)
www.cambridge.org/core/element...

☃️📚 @andreaperez.bsky.social

Workshop on Freethinking and Democracy at Jyväskylä on 13 December—come join us if you're around & interested!

CFP: 5th Venice Multidisciplinary World Conference on Republics and Republicanism. June 26-28, 2026. Venice International University.
The conference is open to all work on republicanism, but with special focus on 'Power, Freedom and Oligarchy'.
Deadline: December 30

www.univiu.org/campus-servi...

El jurado propuso otorgarlo ex aequo a David Guerrero Martín “Reframing expressive freedom: free speech libertarianism, republicanism, and the political economy of communication” (dirigida por @davidcasassas.bsky.social y @lisamherzog.bsky.social)

On Montesquieu and the enemies of truth. During the last 24hrs my review of Philosophical Mechanics in the Age of Reason by Katherine Brading and Marius Stan (Oxford University Press, 2024) appeared at Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews (here)...

On Montesquieu and the enemies of truth.
open.substack.com/pub/digressi...

For socialism and freedom: the life of Eugene Debs | Aeon Essays How Eugene V Debs turned American republicanism against the chiefs of capitalism – and became a true crusader for freedom

Delighted that Mamdani has won and moreover opened his victory speech by quoting Eugene Debs. aeon.co/essays/for-s...

🎉 @david-guerrero.bsky.social, doctor en Sociologia per la Universitat de Barcelona i en Filosofia per la Universitat de Groningen, ha estat reconegut amb dos prestigiosos premis internacionals per la seva tesi sobre la llibertat d’expressió. Enhorabona!

Due to Academia(.)edu licensing agreement, which permits the use of your likeness, voice, and publications in any manner they choose, I, like many others, have decided to leave the platform. You can now find my research on ResearchGate instead.

Academia.edu - Find Research Papers, Topics, Researchers Academia.edu is the platform to share, find, and explore 50 Million research papers. Join us to accelerate your research needs & academic interests.

Thanks to the warnings by my colleague Titus Stahl (who is really well-versed in these things), I've just deleted my academia.edu account. Their new terms and conditions are horrible in terms of data use. If you're on that platform, reconsider, or at least read the new conditions carefully...

Been talking nonstop about this shameful episode for the past two days & this point needs to be underscored: It's the culmination of longstanding structural defects in our media, not simply the bad actions of bad actors. What happened to Jimmy Kimmel is a downstream manifestation of systemic probs:

Portrait of David Guerrero

Congratulations to #CAISfellow David Guerrero! He received the Sir Ernest Barker Prize (PSA) and Leo Strauss Award (APSA) for his 2024 dissertation: research.rug.nl/en/publicati...
@david-guerrero.bsky.social @polstudiesassoc.bsky.social

The first page of the pdf of an academic article titled "Three Concepts of Freedom of Assembly: Liberal, Associative, Radical" in Politics and Society authored by Benjamin Ask Popp-Madsen and Mikkel Flohr. https://doi.org/10.1177/00323292251359556

Hot of the press, new article "Three Concepts of Freedom of Assembly: Liberal, Associative, Radical" co-authored with @bpoppmadsen.bsky.social, and available Open Access from Politics and Society: doi.org/10.1177/0032... 1/3

MAGISTRAL Joaquín Reyes ante Soto Ivars "CANCELACIÓN: ANTES HABÍA UN CONSENSO: SER RAC1STA ESTÁ MAL" YouTube video by Politikeo UM7BJ

De vez en cuando creo que está bien recordar la somanta que le dio Joaquín Reyes a Soto Ivars sobre el tema de la cancelación youtu.be/a-59YwvuvZM?...

Carl Becker, 1922

Carl Becker (1922) on Bentham's utilitarianism as anti-revolutionary

(1/6) www.hup.harvard.edu/books/978067.... Self-promotion is not my thing, and yet today I’ll engage in it a bit - because The Democratic Marketplace is officially out today, at least in the US (the Dutch version will come out later this month).

Hugely important topic in media criticism

Via @brianstelter.bsky.social: The Financial Times recently dubbed it "the great crime paradox:" Violent crime rates are falling, both in the US and the UK, "but a growing share of people think levels are rising."
view.newsletters.cnn.com/messages/175...

✨CfP✨

Reading the Readers: Theories, Methods, and Futures in Reception Studies

12–13 February 2026, University of Málaga

Please share widely and submit proposals by 22 September 2025

@rosariolopez.bsky.social

"“The basic theory of departmentalism is that while the Supreme Court has the authority to exercise its Article III ‘judicial Power’ in cases or controversies before it,” Mr. Goldsmith wrote, “the President’s Article II duty to ‘take care that the law be faithfully executed’ gives him an independent power to determine what ‘the law,’ including the Constitution, means, for purposes of exercising executive power.” Alexander Hamilton, writing in the Federalist Papers, described that possibility as one of the main checks on the judiciary created by the constitutional system of divided powers. The general merits of departmentalism are much debated. It is strong medicine that risks doing more harm than good overall, and that by its nature requires controversial judgments by the executive."

As if concerned some reader-in-the-know might mistake his op-ed for error, rather than fraud upon a reading public, here Vermeule is to be seen conspicuously capering & clicking his heels, in evident mischievous self-delight at such achievement of sheer sophistry. www.nytimes.com/2025/07/31/o...

I cut this image out of a sale catalogue years ago. Never been able to find its source since (and I have tried a lot!).

If you know where it is from, I'd be thrilled to find out.