On the train, I read this striking formulation from Eric Hobsbawm’s The Age of Capital: “Nationalism therefore still seemed readily manageable within the framework of a bourgeois liberalism, and compatible with it. A world of nations would it was believed, be a liberal world, and a liberal world would consist of nations. The future was to show that the relationship between the two was not as simple as this.” I might add that, today, the inverse piety seems to be true—a world of nations (think Hungary) is assumed to be an illiberal one, and only transnational political frameworks like the EU are thought to be compatible with liberalism. I imagine that the future will show that this relationship—this compatibility—will not prove simple either. 1
You should never trust a writer with good eyesight for the same reason that you should never trust a skinny chef.
Careerists in New York make for bad dates and worse friends.