Matthew A. Roberts

Latest by Matthew A. Roberts in Chronicles

• Cultural Revolutions

  July 2011

  Adiós, Interloper

  A recent headline read “Dividing forces are mounting in Europe.” A more charitable version might have said “Sovereignty Returning to European Countries” or “Self-Preservation on the Rise.”

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• Reviews

  September 2010

  A Legend for Our Time

  In the spring of 88 b.c., dozens of cities across Asia Minor united in a secret plot to kill all the Romans and Italic peoples—man, woman, and child—in their territories. How the plot was kept secret remains unknown, but the massacre was carried out successfully.

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• American Proscenium

  April 2010

  Frankfurt School Tories

  It is a strange world in which allegedly conservative politicians will go to great lengths to demonstrate their politically correct bona fides. For years, we have witnessed this tendency within the Republican Party.

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• Reviews

  February 2010

  Cicero's Legacy

  Once a believer in the blessings of modernity and classical liberalism, Dutch philosopher Andreas Kinneging now considers himself a “convert” to traditional thinking.

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• Reviews

  December 2009

  Waiting for Charles the Second

  “A state cannot be constituted from any chance body of persons, or in any chance period of time,” wrote Aristotle. “Most of the states which have admitted persons of another stock, either at the time of their foundation or later, have been troubled by sedition.”

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• Reviews

  October 2009

  Homogeneity Was Our Strength

  “Diversity enriches education,” then-presidential-candidate Barack Obama commented in a Q&A session with The Chronicle of Higher Education. Students should be “exposed to diversity in all its forms,” and affirmative action is the vehicle to guarantee this goal.

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• Reviews

  February 2009

  Homeric Lessons

  “Should one have lived, only to read the twenty-third song of the Iliad, he could not lament of his existence,” commented G.E. Lessing. Of course, in Lessing's day, many of the literati could have read the Iliad in Greek.

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• Reviews

  January 2009

  Caesar on His Own

  “The Republic is nothing, a mere name without form or substance,” Julius Caesar allegedly stated. The sentiment, certainly, was validated by the end of Caesar’s life, which marked the transition from an imperial republic to an empire eclipsing republican institutions.

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• Correspondence

  March 2008

  The “Smart” Port

  In saner times, countries had borders, and along these borders were ports for the inspection and tagging of goods coming into or leaving the country.

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• Correspondence

  January 2008

  Globalization Transforms Kansas City

  After a decade of living in Europe and various locales in the United States, I returned four years ago to the place where my family has long resided.

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