Nothing as destructive as radical change

When everything is shifting and nothing seems certain, it feels good sometimes to read those who have experienced key moments in history. So, with Poland throwing the legal order of Europe in disarray, Russia rationing Europe's gas supply and the UK reneging on its Brexit commitments, perhaps the moment has come again to read a few essays by the French philosopher Michel de Montaigne.

Montaigne, a humanist, lived in the 16th century, a period marked by political, civil and, above all, r...