Italian master thinker Giorgio Agamben has been on the – controversial – forefront examining what new paradigm may be emerging out of our current pandemic distress. He recently called attention to an extraordinary book published seven years ago that already laid it all out. In Tempetes Microbiennes, Patrick Zylberman, a professor of History of Health... Read More

Predictably eyeing the Decline and Fall of the American Empire, a serious academic debate is raging around the working hypothesis of historian Kyle Harper, according to whom viruses and pandemics – especially the Justinian plague in the 6th century – led to the end of the Roman Empire. Well, history actually teaches us that epidemics... Read More

He was known as “the Riddler.” Even “the Dark.” Heraclitus of Ephesus was one of a kind. In his heart of hearts a contemptuous aristocrat, this master of paradox despised all so-called wise men and the mobs that adored them. Heraclitus was the definitive precursor of social distancing. We, unfortunately, owe the “pre-Socratic” reductionist label... Read More

President Xi Jinping formally told WHO head Tedros Ghebreyesus, at their meeting in Beijing earlier this week, that the coronavirus epidemic “is a devil and we cannot allow the devil to hide.” Ghebreyesus for his part could not but praise Beijing for its extremely swift, coordinated response strategy – which includes fast identification of the... Read More