edwebbempireseminar

The Heavenly Palace, the first module in China’s permanent space station, will be launched next year, a senior aerospace official confirmed Wednesday.

a crew of three taikonauts

Aerospace experts and military officials say the Chinese military space program has made major advancements in recent years, notably when it tested an antisatellite system in 2007, using a ballistic missile to shoot down one of its own weather satellites 540 miles up

“The Education of a British-­Protected Child”

the “strongly multiethnic, multilingual, multireligious, somewhat chaotic” situation he was born into as a colonial subject whose first passport described him as a “British Protected Person.” As the 16 essays in this collection reveal, the “education” Achebe and his fellow Nigerians received from their exploitative and racist self-proclaimed protectors “would not be a model of perfection.”

Economic crisis, mounting national debt, excessive foreign commitments -- this is no way to run an empire. America needs serious strategic counseling. And fast. It has never been Rome, and to adopt its strategies no -- its ruthless expansion of empire, domination of foreign peoples, and bone-crushing brand of total war -- would only hasten America's decline. Better instead to look to the empire's eastern incarnation: Byzantium, which outlasted its Roman predecessor by eight centuries. It is the lessons of Byzantine grand strategy that America must rediscover today.