Who made our minds?

Machiavelli: 'stop being good' but 'avoid being loathed'

The Florentine held an unsparing mirror to the minds of statesmen and created the political 'reality' of Hobbes, Kissinger and Mearsheimer (this is an…

6 hrs ago • 

Paul Ham

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October 2025

A thinking thing orbiting a star

When did the timid little ‘I’ who lived mole-like in a medieval fantasy imposed by institutional religion yield to the personal ‘I’ with thoughts and…

Oct 30 • 

Paul Ham

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The 30-year blaze

A beautiful idea emerged from one of the worst wars in history: the possibility of peaceful co-existence

Oct 23 • 

Paul Ham

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The faggot and the Bible

Not all Spanish inquisitors were sadistic brutes posing as 'God's instruments' on earth. Some were raising revenue for the king.

Oct 16 • 

Paul Ham

Loyola limbers up

The spear of the 'Counter-Reformation' founded the most revered and loathed religious order in the history of faith

Oct 9 • 

Paul Ham

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'Antichrist' versus 'Satan'

Christendom tore itself apart over whether a wafer was Christ's body or ... a wafer

Oct 2 • 

Paul Ham

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September 2025

Luther's wrath...

How the 'protests' of a German friar launched a new spiritual movement of 'Protestants' and split the Catholic Church

Sep 25 • 

Paul Ham

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The smoke of Purgatory

Pardoners were selling something more valuable than cures, tulips or bitcoin. They were selling eternal life...

Sep 18 • 

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Kindling for the Reformation

When Gutenberg first printed the 'Word of God', Rome felt the fury of an oppressed people who knew they'd been deceived for centuries

Sep 11 • 

Paul Ham

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The man who resurrected Confucius

Wang Yangming and the neo-Confucian ideal

Sep 4 • 

Paul Ham

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August 2025

Aquinas 'completed' Aristotle

Then 'the last man to die a virgin' fell silent...

Aug 28 • 

Paul Ham

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Meanwhile, in the monasteries...

The monks had not been idle, until many went mad

Aug 21 • 

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