In today’s world, dominated as it is by the ephemeral, the superficial, and the inconsequential, it can be hard for a rational, dispassionate observer to make sense of what is going on—politically, socially, economically, and philosophically.

Nigel Biggar, a recently retired professor of theology at Oxford University, has never shunned controversy, as the title of one of his books, In Defence of War, suggests. In this week’s column, I’d like to examine an article of his, “A Christian Defense of American Empire,” that appeared in the October 2022 issue of First Things.

David French, maybe National Review’s most reliably wrong scribe, issued this gem in response to the FBI raid on Donald Trump’s residence in Florida:

Fossil Future: Why Global Human Flourishing Requires More Oil, Coal, and Natural Gas—Not Less
By Alex Epstein
Portfolio 2022
xii + 468 pp.

Money supply growth fell again in August, dropping to a 36-month low. August’s drop continues a steep downward trend from the unprecedented highs experienced during much of the past two years. During the thirteen months between April 2020 and April 2021, money supply growth in the United States often climbed above 35 percent year over year, well above even the “high” levels experienced from 2009 to 2013. 

Jeff Deist: Alex Epstein is our special guest this week. He runs the Center for Industrial Progress, was formerly at the Ayn Rand Institute, and has a background in philosophy. He wrote a famous book called The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels, and followed that up with a new book called Fossil Future. Alex, let me say this book is incredible. Thank you for writing it! I know from the acknowledgements it was quite a difficult task.

Since at least the beginning of the Russo-Ukrainian war, we have witnessed many efforts to pin blame for the conflict not only on the Russian regime, but on virtually all of the Russian people as well. Back in June, for example, the Western media was already in the habit of publishing long, detailed articles explaining why ordinary Russians are morally culpable for the war in Ukraine.

Jeff Deist recently posed the question “Is College Worth It?” My first thought when I opened the article was that he could have reduced the entire piece to a single word: “no.” This cynicism might seem odd coming from somebody who is nearing the end of a PhD program in history, which takes an average of eight years

The Wall Street Journal reported on September 22 that Turkey’s central bank cut that country’s benchmark interest rate to 12 percent from 13 percent, pushing the Turkish lira lower as much as 0.4 percent against the dollar to a new record low after the decision. One US dollar recently bought 18.3866 lira.