Thursday, November 27, 2025 →

This was, not surprisingly, a controversial matter. During the war, during the congressional debates over the treaty with Spain, and during the heated election of 1900, the question of empire was argued at high volume.

In essence, it was an argument about a trilemma. Republicanism, white supremacy, and overseas expansion—the country could have at most two. In the past, republicanism and white supremacy had been jointly maintained by carefully shaping the country’s borders. But absorbing populous nonwhite colonies would wreck all that.

I recently finished reading How to Hide an Empire by Daniel Immerwhar. It gave me much food for thought about how American Empire shapes the experience of being on this planet today.

As an American citizen living through a period of American political crisis, I found the above quote especially thought-provoking. The United States couldn’t be more imperial than it already was (which was very) precisely because it would bring so many non white people into the country.

An argument for a trilemma - republicanism, white supremacy, and overseas expansion - what an awful combination. Can’t we just keep the republic and throw out the other two?

Sunday, December 1, 2024 →

Finished reading: 2312 by Kim Stanley Robinson; 📚

While not quite as thought provoking as the Mars Trilogy or Ministry of the Future, which may have shifted some of my own politics, Kim Stanley Robinson still impressed me with his world building and his ability to combine science with politics.

In this book, I particularly enjoyed his descriptions of the terraria, or hollowed out asteroids spun to simulate gravity on their hollowed-out insides, and each populated with its own complete biome, complete with flora and fauna. Many were a love note to different biomes on earth.

Saturday, November 23, 2024 →

Finished reading: Villa and Zapata by Frank McLynn 📚

I’d previously listened to the excellent Revolutions Podcast series on the Mexican Revolution, which peaked my interest in learning more.

I was fascinated to learn more about the conditions during the Porfiriato that lead to the Mexican Revolution. Both the role the Haciendas played as a conservative, planter-class aristocracy, as well as the destructive role American and British oil investments played in capturing the state. I can’t point to any contemporary parallels at all.

Anyways, the sticker I have of Emiliano Zapata riding a bike on my own bike finally feels earned. I read his biography.