Humans are tribal animals, and a recurring failure to grasp this truth has contributed to some of the worst debacles of U.S. foreign policy in the past 50 years.
Each week HNN features up to a dozen fresh op eds by prominent historians. Our archives, extending over the past decade, include thousands of well-researched pieces. Our mission is to help put current events into historical perspective.
On July 29, 1805, French political thinker and historian Alexis de Tocqueville was born. He is best known for his Democracy in America, where he analyzed the rising living standards and social conditions of individuals and their relationship to the market and state in Western societies.
543 years ago today, Florentine civil servant, diplomat, historian, philosopher and author Niccolò Machiavelli was born. Besides his seminal work 'Il Principe' (The Prince) he also wrote comedies, carnival songs, and even poetry.