Joseph Heller Still Survives

My favorite author is newly relevant, as I realized the other day.

Catch-22 is traditionally seen as an anti-war book, but it's actually more complicated. Either way, though, its depiction of a gleefully stupid, incompetent, perception-obsessed establishment rings true today. It also contains my favorite commentary on farm subsidies.

Picture This, a much less famous work, examines the parallels between the Peloponnesian War and the Cold War. Its cynicism and great-power skepticism are highly evocative, especially given our recent... adventures.

History repeats itself, and old lessons become new again. Welcome back Heller.