I always wanted to read Taylor Branch's three-volume history of "America in the King Years." For tonight I have to make do with his gigantorial in today's Times. The article focuses on the the global influence of MLK's nonviolence campaigns, but also contains this excellent aside:

Meanwhile, Lyndon Johnson steadily lost his presidency at home before he could forge any political order in Vietnam. Although casualty figures confirmed the heavy advantage of American arms, Johnson fell victim to a historical paradox evolving since the age of Napoleon: modern warfare destroys more but governs less.

This is what I love in good history writing and in good magazine journalism: the tastey comment aside. You already have an impressive social/political narrative going along and then the narrator says, "Oh by the way let me drop Napoleonic shit on you."

Oh this? Oh it's just a little thing on the side. I dabble. Please, don't make it into some big thing, let's just order already.