The More Things Change: History & Causation

Signal, Meaning, and War:

Norman M. Ricklefs — Fri, 23 Jan 2026 04:00:53 GMT

On the battlefield, a message is never simply a message.

Practically, the message is a runner with mud on his boots, trying to find a unit that has already moved. It is a radio call swallowed by static. It is a map marked with a pencil in a t…

Game Theory vs. History

Norman M. Ricklefs — Thu, 18 Dec 2025 11:50:33 GMT

A clean model meets a dirty world

In the modern age we like problems that sit still. We like a clear playing field, we like rules, and we like outcomes that can be counted. We call that “analysis,” and it comforts us. That is also why game th…

Mathematics and Human Behavior

Norman M. Ricklefs — Thu, 16 Oct 2025 15:49:54 GMT

As we discussed a few weeks ago, in 1959, C.P. Snow gave a lecture at Cambridge that should have echoed through the corridors of modern intellectual life. He spoke of “The Two Cultures”: the chasm between the sciences and the humanities. Snow, a scientist and novelist, believed this divide was not just academic but dangerous. It left societies without a…

When Complex Systems Fail: What Iraq, Insurgencies, and Airplanes Teach Us About Fragility

Norman M. Ricklefs — Thu, 18 Sep 2025 08:54:42 GMT

Let’s start with a deceptively simple question: What is a complex system?

The term “complex system” is increasingly common across disciplines, from ecology to economics, from neuroscience to network security. And while definitions vary slightly depending on who you ask, physicists, anthropologists, engineers, or historians, the core idea is remarkably co…

The problem of causation in history

Norman M. Ricklefs — Thu, 17 Jul 2025 13:02:48 GMT

Misunderstanding the present is the inevitable consequence of ignorance of the past: Marc Bloch, The Historian’s Craft (1944)

Why do things actually happen? The study of history is inescapably entangled with the …