“Rule One, on page one of the book of war, is: ‘Do not march on Moscow,’” Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery told the House of Lords in 1962. “Various people have tried it, Napoleon and Hitler, and it is no good.”
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Month: February 2022
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Driving Miss Racial Activist
At first blush, the 1989 film Driving Miss Daisy seems innocuous. Its plot centers around the relationship of an aging Jewish matron, Daisy Werthan (Jessica Tandy), and her black chauffeur Hoke Colburn (Morgan Freeman). Yet a recent rewatch caused me
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Killing Ourselves
It has always been the practice of the state to try to undermine or eliminate other bodies and associations that rival it for affection and obedience, primarily the parish, guild, community, and family. The modern unified and ever-present state has
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The New American Genocide
The political hostility of the United States today is directed at no one more than America’s European-descended whites—the group whose ancestors are largely responsible for settling, building, and defending this country.
That is not to say others contributed nothing, but …
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Real Female Athletes Unite!
I played on the European tennis circuit during the late 1950s, ranking number three in Greece. But don’t be too impressed. Unlike today—when Greek players rank fourth internationally in men’s tennis and sixth in women’s—Greece was hardly a tennis power,
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The Guardians of Sterility
Pope Francis addressed concerns about his controversial Traditionis custodes (Guardians of the Tradition)—an apostolic letter issued in July 2021 that placed severe new restrictions on the practice of the Latin Mass in the Roman Catholic Church—in a Responsa ad dubia
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The Lure of Integralism
Catholics have figured prominently among American conservatives, from Russell Kirk to William F. Buckley, Jr., to Antonin Scalia. Though they differed in many ways, Kirk, Buckley, and Scalia all emphasized the importance of tradition in ordering any decent society and
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Éric Zemmour, in the Footsteps of de Gaulle
The Economist contemptuously called him France’s “wannabe Donald Trump.” He’s been accused by The Atlantic of using the “Trump playbook.” Not to be outdone, Britain’s New Statesman dubbed him a “TV-friendly fascist.”
French anti-racism …
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Reader Letters: Diversity as a Weakness | Professor Janowski replies: | The Feminized Force | Tyrannical Tariffs
Professor Zbigniew Janowski, in his essay “Equality’s Third Wave,” (January 2022 Chronicles) has hit the nail on the head. Equality isn’t good enough, but equity and diversity should prevail. Quality and merit are gone; second-rate is now …
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The Redemption of Saint-Saëns, 100 Years On
“I am merely a genius, not a god,” mystery writer Rex Stout’s fictional detective Nero Wolfe said. “A genius may discover the hidden secrets and display them; only a god can create new ones.”
Such a genius was French …
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Bibliotheca of the Bizarre
The Madman’s Library: The Strangest Books, Manuscripts and Other Literary Curiosities From History
by Edward Brooke-Hitching
Chronicle Books
256 pp., $29.95
Books are the “emblem of civilization,” Edward Brooke-Hitching writes in a new book that explores the strange history of …
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What We Are Reading: February 2022
What makes a great novelist? Genius—the ability to see connections hidden from most of us—obviously helps, but if great novels are great commentaries on the human condition, then living in a rich, stimulating, and challenging environment may also be essential.
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Books in Brief: February 2022
Christianity and Social Justice, by Jon Harris (Reformation Zion Publishing; 160 pp., $14.99). In this slim discussion of social justice and its relationship, or non-relationship, to Christianity, Jon Harris, a Protestant theologian and Baptist minister, addresses the topic long …
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Biden Voters’ Remorse
There seems to be a widespread belief that Joe Biden has exceeded the mandate for which he was elected. It seems we’re supposed to believe that those who voted for the Biden-Harris ticket craved moderation after Trump’s troubled and unsettling
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NATO—Strategic Asset or Liability?
Is the territorial integrity of Ukraine a cause worth America’s fighting a war with Russia? No, it is not. And this is why President Joe Biden has declared that the U.S. will not become militarily involved should Russia invade Ukraine. …
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Remembering George Santayana
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” It would not surprise George Santayana (1863-1952) that his most famous aphorism is all he is remembered for, nor that it has become almost a cliché, nor that the …
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Revisiting Suicide of the West
The philosopher and commentator James Burnham (1905-1987) was one of National Review’s founders and senior editors. Having broken with Trotskyism, he became one of those thinkers in the tradition of Edmund Burke and James Fitzjames Stephen, who, if not …
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With Friends Like These
British author Douglas Murray recently wrote what he calls a “bit of self-criticism” about the American right in the online magazine UnHerd. Murray builds his argument around what he considers a very serious problem: “Bill Maher, Bari Weiss and
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‘Woke’ Evolution
A Most Interesting Problem: What Darwin’s Descent of Man Got Right and Wrong about Human Evolution
Ed. Jeremy DeSilva
Princeton Universtiy Press
288 pp., $27.95
The complex debate about the place of Darwinian theory in discussions about humankind’s nature has …
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Doubting Thomas
by Jason L. Riley
Basic Books
304 pp., $30
It is hardly surprising that an economist and historian of ideas who spent a long career arguing against the conventional wisdom of politicians and
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