The West may collapse very suddenly. Complex civilizations do that, because they operate, most of the time, on the edge of chaos.

Collaboration is risky. If it fails, if the occupation is wound up prematurely and the bad guys come back to power, you might find yourself in some serious trouble.

The British press has an insatiable appetite for making public things that should be private. It's a prurience that I've never understood.

Between 1980 and 2000 the number of patents registered in Israel was 7652 compared with 367 for all the Arab countries combined.

Today, the average Korean works a thousand hours more a year than the average German. A thousand. ... That is the end of the Great Divergence.

If young men have jobs - or the prospects of jobs - they are less likely to take up arms, they are less likely to join the resistance.

I would say I'm a 19th-century liberal, possibly even an 18th-century one.