China’s Military Strength Has Been Greatly Exaggerated

Unrivaled: Why America Will Remain the World’s Sole Superpower
by Michael Beckley
Cornell University Press, 2018
xi + 231 pages

At this point, most everyone is now familiar with a certain narrative about China. Namely, the narrative about how China will soon be the most economically powerful country in the world, and how its military power will soon eclipse that of the United States.

When a Fallacy Isn’t Really a Fallacy

Students often ask me to recommend a good introduction to philosophy, and now the question can be answered more easily than in years past. Michael Huemer’s Knowledge, Value, and Reality, published last April, contains a profusion of arguments on important topics and is written in a conversational style that is easy to follow, and is often very funny as well. Huemer is especially good at coming up with objections and counters to these objections, in a way that shows how contemporary analytic philosophers work.