Why does modernist architecture produce so many soulless, ugly buildings? The answer lies with the early 20th-century rejection of objective truth and beauty, and the related dismissal of Greek and Roman traditions. President Donald Trump is considering an executive order favouring classical designs in all federal buildings. As Sumantra Maitha reports in The Federalist, this has drawn fierce opposition.

Toppling a Communist Empire for $2.7 Million
Though widely thought of as focused on waterboarding terrorists or poisoning foreign potentates, it was by smuggling paper that the CIA achieved its most monumental triumph. R.M. Gerecht in a book review for The Washington Free Beacon charts how the late Cold War-era operation to flood Poland with Western books, magazines, printing supplies and audio recordings fatally weakened the country’s Communist dictatorship, setting the stage for the downfall of the entire Soviet empire. Total cost: US$2.7 million.


