Joe Costello has decades experience in politics, energy, environment, and communications. Traveled and worked across the planet. Long a student of democracy, its demise, possible revitalization.
Newsletter
Subscribe now If you could time travel to a savanna in East Africa 150,000 years ago, take a new born infant from her mother's arms, bring her back to today, raise her in Brookline, Massachusetts, she could end up attending Harvard or MIT. Across her childhood she
Newsletter
Subscribe now Across three thousand years of recorded Western history, democracy is an anomaly. Just as rare are good books on the culture, structure, and processes of democracy. As someone who spent a lifetime studying and progressively incapable of practicing democracy, I can recommend only a handful of truly good
Newsletter
Subscribe now This is a review of a FT book review. Apologies to the authors of the book if they are actually saying something more profound, actually anything profound at all, than what's revealed in this review. Problems start with the article’s title, “Who’s the real
Newsletter
Subscribe now The other evening I dropped into a local Istanbul establishment called the James Joyce. So named establishments can be found in many large cities across the planet, all devoid of writing, but you will be able to find two things; a pint of Guinness and the Premier League
Newsletter
Subscribe now A short time ago, I did an hour long talk with Leila Conners on the Roman Republic. Leila is a good friend, colleague, and co-conspirator of many years. She’s an accomplished filmmaker, writer, thinker, and most rare in this era, a genuine citizen. I met Leila when
Newsletter
Subscribe now The 20th century was one of the most revolutionary centuries in human history. Across the board – politically, culturally, scientifically, and technologically – humanity experienced radical changes. Fascinatingly, people rapidly adapted relatively easily to many of these changes, alarmingly, the past was even more quickly forgotten. No matter how radical
Newsletter
Subscribe now The FT has a should be read piece on the end of the Great Shale Revolution. It's fairly good, not quite accurate, and unintentionally humorous at times. Start out with the lede being buried, and as a habitual lede burier, I speak with authority. The lede
Newsletter
Subscribe now (Continued from II) History of the Peloponnesian War is both a magnificent work of history and politics, certainly any great history is by definition invaluable politics. There is so much to be gained from this work its impossible to narrow down, but two things are particularly relevant for
Newsletter
Subscribe now (Continued from I) The real difference between the war loving Athenian Boomers and their contemporary American counterparts is the Athenians didn't personally shirk from battle, they engaged it. Nothing better defines the degraded politics of America than the ceaseless advocacy for war by those who came
Newsletter
Subscribe now An unfortunate and indisputable fact of history is democracies proved no better at peace than oligarchy, monarchy, or tyranny. Using the present United States, ancient Rome, and ancient Athens as examples, it wouldn't be controversial to say they often proved most bellicose. Democratic peace is achieved
Newsletter
Subscribe now Pat Caddell and I had a long running conversation on which of America's two established parties would be first to collapse. This conversation needed some sense of American history because at this point it's been a century and a half since one of America&
Newsletter
Subscribe now Lord and everybody else knows I have absolutely nothing to say about fashion, but Vivienne Westwood passed and she deserves a nod. Westwood first became famous with the whole London punk scene. She helped dress it. Without her and partner Malcolm McLaren’s clothes store, the Sex Pistols