HeyJaredThe Empire Chronicles
This Substack engages with the finest minds in the world in literature, academia, the arts, media, and politics in open-minded conversations about the issues affecting all of us.
- Indexed issues, last 90 days
- 21
- Latest publication
- Sep 29, 2026
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- Earliest in this view
- Aug 16, 2026
Latest issues
How Woke Killed Literature (opens the original)
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By now, anyone who knows anything about the literary world is aware of the almost daily incidents that roil us in America. To outsiders having nothing to do with the literary world, these frequent outbursts of indignation about something insulting someone has said about someone else, followed by a wave of abject apologies by the accused, seem to have something of the ceremonial feel of Stalinist or Maoist purges. The literary world cannot seem to work itself into a pure enough froth to get on wi
Interview with Mohsin Hamid (opens the original)
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Mohsin Hamid has written a nearly flawless third novel. His first novel, Moth Smoke, was a young man’s overly jaded representation of his generation’s depravities in a transparent act of purging. The second novel, The Reluctant Fundamentalist, was similarly purgative, as he sought to distance himself from his engagement with the West’s capitalist project, punctuated by his return to Pakistan. In this third novel, he could not care less about explicating modern Pakistan’s pathologies, though that
It’s Not Trump: It’s Moronic Americans (opens the original)
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Donald Trump threatened Iran’s nuclear annihilation yet again today, addressing world leaders at the U.N., ostensibly the global peace organization. He’s been doing it since 2017. He did it momentously in April of this year, once he knew he and the American empire had abjectly failed in their war of revenge. He has threatened nuclear war against Iran several times since then. It’s obviously on his mind constantly, and has been for ten years. The only reason he hasn’t done it yet is not because o
A Guide for the Perplexed (opens the original)
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Americans have tragically learned that vast oceans no longer separate us from the rest of the world. The media have shortchanged us by not providing enough useful information about different countries of the world, leaving us unable to always comprehend our foreign policy motives. The following brief guide to individual countries around the world should help clear up confusion about our strategic interests. With its help, the average American should be able to follow the nuances and subtleties o
Part II: Breaking Bad’s Visual Style (opens the original)
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Continued from Part I.On his next visit to the building supply store, when Walt leaves we see his car framed in a wide shot, the texture of the scene corresponding to the wide view of the Beneke headquarters earlier, and also the texture when Jesse leaves the duplex. Walt converts his basement into a lab of sorts, once he discovers “rot” while fixing the heater; fixing one mechanical problem only leads to discovering another, in an endless chain. When we see Walt Jr. staring at the hole undergro
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