Fate of the West
Where Western civilization is headed. History, demography, culture and power, with serious attention to both decline and renewal.
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This reading list brings together items from the sources selected for Fate of the West. Open each item at its original source for the complete article, episode or video. This is a selection of current coverage, not a complete archive.
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How to stop mass migration
Entire social sectors learn to depend on it
Sneak Preview
Trump’s betrayal of Ukraine is a glimpse of the next two years.
Why Jewish Families Fled This Elite Prep School
In the spring of 2024, a Jewish student at San Francisco University High School (UHS) told his parents that something alarming had happened in a ninth-grade class. Instead of a lesson about African colonialism, the teacher denounced Israel, Zionists, and what he called “colonizers,” according to parents.
Pete Hegseth’s High-Tech Barbarism
In livestreaming Nidal Hasan’s execution, the secretary of war is marking his territory in the snuff movie business—and radicalizing people along the way.
Niall Ferguson: Why Europe Is Burning
“The most French thing I’ve ever seen” was a couple sipping wine in a sidewalk café, probably discussing Jean-Paul Sartre, while a fire started by protesters raged on the other side of the boulevard. Disappointingly, the video posted on X was from three years ago, but it suited the moment last week.
Thymos and American Foreign Policy
Marco Rubio seems to have quoted my work on recognition. He doesn’t understand it.
The Political Afterlives of Ferdinand the Bull
One of the most iconic pacifists in American literature celebrates his 90th birthday this year. The bovine hero of the children’s picture book The Story of Ferdinand rose to fame in 1936, when he refused to partake in a bullfight.
Elon Musk’s James Talarico Smear Blew Up In His Face
But that doesn’t mean the danger from Musk’s lies is over.
AutoZone Workers Won a Union. Then the Company Fired Them
Speaking with members of the newly formed AutoZone Workers Union, you would never guess that one of them had just been fired — and that another would be the next morning. That’s what happened to Nathan DuCongé and then David Valencia after they won their union election. On a Zoom call with Jacobin, though, their joy was contagious. DuCongé and his coworkers were all smiles and banter as they talked about their union campaign, how it feels to win, and the unexpected boost they received from filmmaker Boots Riley.
Latino Pride: Honoring Heritage, Challenging Columbus Day
Hispanic Heritage Month celebrates Latino culture and pride while prompting reflection on Columbus Day and Indigenous recognition.
Robert Kramer Is the New Left’s Great, Forgotten Filmmaker
When Robert Kramer’s 1968 film The Edge reached Los Angeles, its ad in the Free Press posed a provocative question: “Should we kill the President?” And while Lyndon Johnson survived that film’s alienated would-be assassin, Kramer’s next film left little question as to where he stood. Ice, shot in early 1969 and released in late 1970, imagined an armed leftist insurrection in New York City, taking the jolting documentary-like style of Gillo Pontecorvo’s Battle of Algiers (1966) and bringing its war home to the Big Apple.
Publishers Killed the Paperback, Then Blamed Readers
It seems every week a new piece about the decline and fall of the American reading habit goes viral. The idea that we’re entering a literary apocalypse that threatens to destabilize our democracy is perhaps overstated, but nobody is denying the book-reading trend is grim. In the most recent international assessment of adult skills, conducted in 2023, 28 percent of American adults scored at or below the lowest level of literacy — up from 19 percent just six years earlier.
The Philips Curve Is a Tool for Waging Class War on Workers
For nearly three-quarters of a century, central banks and policymakers have relied on the Phillips curve: the idea that inflation can be kept in check by disciplining worker power and putting restraints on employment levels. In 2026, does that theory, and the depoliticization of monetary policy that accompanies it, still make sense? Perhaps the real question isn’t whether every inflation spike has the same cause and cure, but whether central banks should use higher unemployment as their default tool to stabilize prices at all.
A New Middle East Takes Shape
Plus: Trump’s Russian diesel deal draws bipartisan criticism, the Justice Department opens an antitrust probe of TV networks, and Mr. Sparklepants and his friends hide from the storm.
From Disengaged to Selective: The Profiles of Young Adult Daters
We take a deep dive into the National Dating Landscape Survey to explore the different dating profiles of young adults.
El-Sayed’s Unanswered Questions. Plus
Rod Dreher’s dispatch from NatCon Jerusalem. Arthur Brooks on why you shouldn’t pursue happiness. Helen Andrews says the ‘great feminization’ has come to Cornell. And more.
The Political Constitution at War
It's not too late for Congress to reclaim its authority over the use of force.
James Madison on Human Nature
The Founders’ constitutional morality demands more than mechanical checks and balances.
China’s Growth Machine
China is not the world’s largest command economy. It is a continent-sized Silicon Valley.
The Bible Story Every Atheist Should Read, with Megan Phelps-Roper
Watch now (70 mins) | She spent her childhood protesting funerals in the name of God. Now she can’t stop reading His book.
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