In his new history of Rome, Kyle Harper recounts how 6th-century Romans reeled before a new pathogen which wiped out 20-30 percent of the population. Edward N. Luttwak, reviewing The Fate of Rome in Tablet, praises Harper, who cites evidence pointing to Yersinia pestis, better known as the bubonic plague in its much later return as the “Black Death.”

In Vino Veritas – Or, Whatever It Takes to Get the Truth Out of Such a Crew
Winston Churchill drank his way to saving the world from Nazism and, according to Alec Marsh in Spiked, the old bulldog would fit right in with certain current Parliamentarians enjoying a tipple to endure late-night sittings in Westminster. “Well, why not?” Marsh asks. “Politicians wouldn’t be human if they didn’t.” This news doesn’t, however, sit well with certain neo-puritan scolds from – you guessed it – the Green Party, which on the other hand does support providing free narcotics to welfare recipients.


