The Duck of Minerva

Newer Isn’t Necessarily Better

by Dan Nexon

28 May 2005, 1841 EDT

“Store Wars”, the pro-organic food Star Wars parody, gets 1,268 hits on Technorati. The infinitely superior, but much older, “Troops” receives only 43.1

I remember when my wife brought home “Troops” on zip disk from her job at an internet startup. We were living in New York, in a tiny apartment, and I weighed a lot less than I do now. Anyway, we still have the disk lying around somewhere, although internet technology and the lack of a zip drive make it irrelevant.

So, all of you youngsters who thought “Store Wars” was thumbs-up funny, watch “Troops” now! Oh, yeah: Plan 9 from George Lucas is also pretty good.

Star Wars, IR, and baseball. That’s the newborn “Duck” for you.

1Admittedly, devising a discrete search for “Troops” is harder than for “Store Wars.” The number cited here is for “Star Wars”+troops+parody.

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Daniel H. Nexon is a Professor at Georgetown University, with a joint appointment in the Department of Government and the School of Foreign Service. His academic work focuses on international-relations theory, power politics, empires and hegemony, and international order. He has also written on the relationship between popular culture and world politics.

He has held fellowships at Stanford University's Center for International Security and Cooperation and at the Ohio State University's Mershon Center for International Studies. During 2009-2010 he worked in the U.S. Department of Defense as a Council on Foreign Relations International Affairs Fellow. He was the lead editor of International Studies Quarterly from 2014-2018.

He is the author of The Struggle for Power in Early Modern Europe: Religious Conflict, Dynastic Empires, and International Change (Princeton University Press, 2009), which won the International Security Studies Section (ISSS) Best Book Award for 2010, and co-author of Exit from Hegemony: The Unraveling of the American Global Order (Oxford University Press, 2020). His articles have appeared in a lot of places. He is the founder of the The Duck of Minerva, and also blogs at Lawyers, Guns and Money.

Website |  + posts

Daniel H. Nexon is a Professor at Georgetown University, with a joint appointment in the Department of Government and the School of Foreign Service. His academic work focuses on international-relations theory, power politics, empires and hegemony, and international order. He has also written on the relationship between popular culture and world politics.

He has held fellowships at Stanford University's Center for International Security and Cooperation and at the Ohio State University's Mershon Center for International Studies. During 2009-2010 he worked in the U.S. Department of Defense as a Council on Foreign Relations International Affairs Fellow. He was the lead editor of International Studies Quarterly from 2014-2018.

He is the author of The Struggle for Power in Early Modern Europe: Religious Conflict, Dynastic Empires, and International Change (Princeton University Press, 2009), which won the International Security Studies Section (ISSS) Best Book Award for 2010, and co-author of Exit from Hegemony: The Unraveling of the American Global Order (Oxford University Press, 2020). His articles have appeared in a lot of places. He is the founder of the The Duck of Minerva, and also blogs at Lawyers, Guns and Money.

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