" a clearly stated and well-understood mission helps structure disagreements and manage diversity" the military and pro sports, probably the two most diverse and integrated institutions in American life, are great examples of this.

What a great read. Hughes-Hallett presents D’Annunzio as a bizarre mixture of Wilde, Kipling and Cecil Rhodes, but mysteriously irresistible to both women and men, and still celebrated in streets, squares and public buildings over Italy.

There’s a book that needs to be written on cocaine a century ago (maybe it has been). I recently read Anthony Beevor on Russia’s post-revolution Civil War. The Whites were pretty useless at securing supplies of weapons and food, but they never ran out of cocaine, apparently.