Ancient Greek Astronomical Dial Keeping Track of the Olympics

An interesting article in the Scientific American on an astronomical device, known as the Antikythera mechanism, complete with graphics and a slideshow, throws light into how the ancients used instruments to predict eclipses and keep track of recurrent (sports) events.

Lessons Learned from Thucydides

 

I keep coming across a lot of classical references recently with relation to the domain of politics, grand strategy and strategic thinking in general.
Here is a most engaging chapter
chapter_9
from a book Theory of War and Strategy, published by the U.S. Army War College. The author, R. Craig Nation, has served as Professor of Strategy and [...]

Classics and Politics

In an amusing article, What can Boris learn from the classics?, Finlo Rohrer writes for BBC News that classical education can give great insights into politics and the psychology of political leadership. The article is less about Boris Johnson, London’s new mayor, than about the role of classics in contemporary education.
Being a Classist by education [...]

Possible Sources of Future Intelligence Failure

Russ Travers’ article written in the eve of 9/11 does sound sinister in retrospect in that he points to shortcomings in the intelligence community, which did, sure enough, manifest themselves in a major calamity. This, at least, was my impression after reading his article the first time. However, on a second read, I began to [...]