Web prowl

The BBC has an online poll on who's the world's greatest philosopher. Fareed Zakaria writes about the need to not think about China's rise in exaggerated terms--at least not yet. If you want to do some serious reading but are wondering where to start, here are reading guides to the liberal arts (don't miss Harvey Mansfield on political philosophy and John Lukacs on history). With the internet eroding the Communist Party's monopoly of information and making the traditional policy of "nei jin wai song" (cracking down at home while pretending to foreigners to be wide open) unsustainable, China may not survive death by a thousand blogs.