“Eldorado banal de tous les vieux gargons.” —Charles Baudelaire The last sentence in Russell Banks’s magnificent novel is surprising in its inevitability: “Go, my book, and help destroy the world as it is.” Here is a sentence to conclude a politically radical novel, a story of socially revolutionary purpose. But there is no hint in...
This is a dry, almost mechanical description of a poorly understood but intriguing and vitally important subject: the GRU. After the KGB, the GRU (Chief Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff) is arguably the second largest and most powerful intelligence agency in the world. The author, whose true name and identity are masked, is a...
It may well be indicative of real progress in America that we are now able to read the Presidential speeches of a man that leading commentators frequently declared unelectable a decade ago. But now that Ronald Reagan’s electability is established beyond doubt, the national media have been busy tagging him as the “most ideological” of...
“Dosn’t thou ‘ear my ‘erses legs, as they canters awaay Proputty, pioputty, proputty—that’s what I ‘ears ’em saay.” —Alfred Tennyson George Stigler won the Nobel Prize for Economics in 1982, the second member of the Chicago School to win that award in less than a decade (the other being Milton Friedman in 1976). These prizes...
Philip Jose Farmer of Peoria, Illinois, is one of the great masters of science fiction. The first of a new series, Dayworld, depicts events in seven distinctly different, wild Manhattan life-styles of the year 3414 A.D. By portraying a future world government rooted in modern ideas and dilemmas, Farmer continues the science fiction tradition of...
Texas Politics, by Wilbourn Benton, professor of political science at Texas A&M, is a textbook that surveys the constitution of the state of Texas, with heavy emphasis on the written, legal structure of how the state is run. Much of the book is a dry summary. When he can, the author tells the story of...
For Samuel Johnson, imperatives were dictated by literature and religion. The two were closely tied together in his mind. Indeed, in his laudable study of Johnson’s religious life, Charles Pierce Jr. concludes “that Johnson came to regard his own work as a professional writer with religious seriousness. [H]e believed that his writing was the principle professional...
Geometry, most high school students will attest, is a dull subject. This dullness, however, is not only inescapable but essential. Memorizing theorems and deriving proofs is no fun, but doing such tasks teaches us—as “relevant” and “creative” courses in “communication” or “personal development” do not—that the mind must submit to truth, not the other way...
“Tyranny is always better organized than freedom.” —Charles Peguy In Moscow in 1963, there was a saying: “Tell me what you think of Solzhenitsyn and One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, and I’ll tell you who you are.” A similar principle applies today among Western intellectuals and their opinion of George Orwell and Nineteen...
“Jason [the tyrant of Pherae] used to say that he felt starved whenever he was out of power.” —Aristotle Phenomena, like words, suffer much in translation. To know is to understand, but to be merely informed is far from knowing. We agonize through our books vicariously, then sit to enjoy our dinner. In the West,...
“The Reverend Canon Kingsley cries History is a pack of lies.” —Bishop Willkin Stubbs Marc Ferro sets out to broaden our horizons. He picks 14 countries (or sometimes ex-countries) to tell us “the vision of the past which is proper to each.” By “proper” he clearly does not mean “correct,” for he puts his stamp...
The title alludes to Whitman’s Democratic Vistas, and David Marc, a professor of American Civilization at Brown University, begins, ends, and sprinkles the middle of this study with quotations from Whitman. The preface announces “a Whitmanian faith in the ability of the individual consciousness to mingle with a collective cultural conscious ness.” And part of...
Irving Bernstein graduated from the University of Rochester in 1937, the same year as the spectacular series of sit-down strikes in the Midwest industrial heartland, the Memorial Day “massacre” at the Republic Steel plant in South Chicago, and the publication of the LaFollette committee’s report on antilabor techniques. His college years saw the emergence of...
After a long neglect, the Austrian school of economics is enjoying a resurgence of both academic and lay interest. In 1981, New York University, a center for Austrian economic thought, convened a conference in honor of the most distinguished leader of this school, Ludwig von Mises (1881-1973). A product of that conference, Method, Process and...
“Of skillfully constructed tales . . . there are very few American specimens.” —Edgar Allan Poe During the 1920’s and 30’s, it was possible for a talented young American author to earn a living publishing virtually nothing but short fiction. Scribner’s, Collier’s, The Saturday Evening Post, and numerous other widely circulated magazines all aggressively sought fiction...
Encountered in the right circumstances, Belloc’s prose can become a lifelong addiction. Fortunately, the craving can be as readily satisfied as a thirst (if that is the right word) for cocaine in Hollywood. He wrote so much that one cannot easily run out, and the best of his works (Hills and the Sea, The Cruise...
Though one of the original Agrarians—men now widely considered prophets—Andrew Lytle is an unheralded man of letters. He has been an influential editor, essayist, farmer, poet, and novelist; yet, outside of a small group of men devoted to Southern letters, Lytle has not been fully appreciated. John L. Stewart, the oft-praised Northern historian of the...
Books like this one frighten the intelligent reader, while raising the hopes of the naive. By taxing demand deposits at 3 percent per year, Mr. Dahlberg promises to erase all the evils that have tortured this economy for decades. No more inflation, budget deficits, poverty, or unemployment Unfortunately, he is not the first to offer...
The literature of the Serbs must be among the least known in Europe, standing somewhere between the Albanians, whose most famous cultural contribution is John Belushi, and the Scandinavians, who—if they pooled their resources—could field at least a basket ball team of literary celebrities. In modern times, the literary Serb best known to the West...
COMMENDABLES Nightfall for Liberalism? by Richard John Neuhaus George Parkin Grant: English Speaking Justice; Notre Dame; $4.95 paper. “Liberalism in its generic form is surely something that all decent men accept as good-‘conservatives’ included. Insofar as the word ‘liberalism’ is used to describe the belief that political liberty is a central human...
Thinking Clearly About War by Gary Jason James Turner Johnson: Can Modern War Be Just?; Yale University Press; New Haven. There is nothing quite so fatuous as the nuclear pacifism currently fashionable among leftist theologians and their ilk. Visions of mushroom clouds (brought on by repeated viewings of On the Beach and Dr. Strangelove)...
The Light From the East by Lee Congdon Martin Jay: Marxism and Totality: The Adventures of a Concept From Lukacs to Habermas; University of California Press; Berkeley, CA. Like the exponents of Critical Theory, the subjects of his first book, Martin Jay considers himself to be an “extraterritorial” outsider. Professor of history at...
Not a Prayer by Steven Hayward Horst E. Richter: All Mighty: A Study of the God Complex in Western Man; Harvest House Publishers; Claremont, CA. There are several ways of thinking about what has come to be called “the decline of the West.” There are the rather sweeping generalizations about secularism by evangelical theologian...
Every century must appear to those who live through it as the most important in history. In the case of the 20th century, an argument can be made that it represents a turning point comparable to the great transitional periods of human history and that, unlike these other periods, it affects directly and immediately most...
The wavering course of United States foreign policy and our fumbling initiatives in the world’s trouble spots have turned a brighter spotlight upon governmental decision-making in this vital area. Our performances in Iran, Lebanon, and Nicaragua have raised questions about the capacity of our open government to deal with these recurring problems. And neither our...
Back in 1969 the Violence Commission issued a report which foresaw the urban America of the future as a sort of terrorist Alphaville: high-tech business centers and shopping malls protected by armed guards, fortified apartment complexes defended by sophisticated electronic surveillance, and patrols of armed citizens keeping a vigilant watch over their neighborhoods. As Elliot...
My hometown in central Pennsylvania has long had a naked public square. Today the most noteworthy buildings on the square are the Colonial Bar and Grill, a Seven Eleven, and a barbershop. Religion is nowhere to be seen. I am not, I must confess, embarrassed about this, except aesthetically. It reflects a tradition going back...
In writing The Naked Public Square, Richard John Neuhaus, a Lutheran pastor, was undoubtedly conscious of Lutheranism’s potentially central role in mediating the religious-moral battles now so conspicuous on the American scene. Liturgical and dogmatic, yet firmly evangelical, mainstream in some of its American manifestations and quasi-sectarian in others, running the gamut from the most sophisticated theology...
A Tale of Modern Times William Dear: The Dungeon Master: The Disappearance of James Dallas Egbert III; Houghton Mufflin; Boston. Dallas Egbert was a genius. At the age of 13 he entered Michigan State University to study computer science. MSU assured the Egberts that the university would take special care of the brilliant but remarkably...
Holy Water for the Rich Bernard Murchland: The Dream of Christian Socialis,; American Enterprise Institute; Washington, D.C. Christianity and socialism exert tremendous influence in our world. Not surprisingly, some people have sought to harness these powerful forces together in one unified engine of change. Today, we hear talk of a “Christian social conscience” and “liberation theology.” Bernard...
Heretics of Dune by Frank Herbert; G.P. Putman’s Sons, New York. While waiting for the cinematic spectacle of Dune, we decided that a bit of exploratory work was in order, so we attended to Frank Herbert’s world –– nay, universes –– of Dune. That was no small feat, as it is a trek into Dune,...
After a decade or two of introspective breast-beating, educators are turning from an examination of what is wrong with public schooling to what is right with private schooling. This latest entry to the field examines religious education in the United States. Nearly 5.1 million students attend some sort of private school (K-12), eschewing for whatever...
The Bostonians: Directed by James Ivory; Screenplay by Ruth Prawer Ghabvala; Merchant-Ivory Production. A popular film that is more than chewing gum for the mind is a rare treat, and a novel of power and poignancy, translated into a well-created film, is sheer bliss. The Bostonians is a love story about an archaic Southern man...
Zanuck: The Rise and Fall of Hollywood’s Last Tycoon by Leonard Mosley; Little Brown, Boston. Movies have not always been taken seriously as art. When Rudolph Arnheim 50 years ago compared film with painting, music, and literature, he was being deliberately controversial. It was a long road from the nickelodeon to artistic respectability. Today film...
Adieux: A Farewell to Sartre by Simone de Beauvoir; Pantheon, New York. It may hurt, but it is useful to know that in matters of foreign translations available at our publishers and bookstores, we live in a well-guarded ghetto. There are protective turrets in the ghetto’s wall, called Sartre, Beauvoir, Gunter Grass, Hein rich B6ll,...
Howard Thurman: For the Inward Journey; Harcourt Brace Jovanovich; San Diego. During his campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination, Jesse Jackson was widely praised for using the language of black evangelism. Wiser observers recognized that Jackson had actually degraded his inherited religious vocabulary by cutting it loose from its spiritual roots and putting it...
Media MIA’s Vietnam Reconsidered: Lessons from a War;Edited by Harrison E. Salisbury; Harper & Row; New York. James Dunkerley: The Long War, Dictatorship and Revou1tion in El Salvador;Junction; London. It has been a decade since America withdrew its troops from Vietnam. Unfortunately, scores of servicemen remain officially unaccounted for, their fate shrouded...
Pure Drivel The feminist movement has fallen on hard times. Many of the intellectual leaders of the movement are abandoning the battlefield and withdrawing to the snug fastnesses of fantasy and self-gratification. Some dream of once and future Amazonian kingdoms ruled by women. Others plan to engineer their androgynous land of heart’s desire with...
A Dangerous Classic Richard M. Weaver: Ideas Have Consequences; University of Chicago; Chicago and London. Richard Weaver was among the rarest of rare birds: an American political philosopher. His intellectual roots reach back through the Nashville Agrarians (Donald Davidson, especially) to Calhoun and ultimately to Thomas and Aristotle. A professed enemy of the...
Journey to Nowhere Lesley Blanch: Pierre Loti: The Legendary Romantic; Helen and Kurt Wolff Harcourt Brace Jovanovich; San Diego. In the end, nothing is more boring than adventure. Once the newness has worn off, foreign landscapes, forbidden loves, and bizarre rituals prove less stimulating than familiar settings, ordinary people, and well-worn traditions. This...
Seeing Red Red Dawn; Directed by John Milius; Written by John Milius and Kevin Reynolds; MGM-UA Entertainment. by C. P. Dragash There is a common daydream among men who grew up in the years between the Berlin blockade and the Cuban missile crisis: the Russians have invaded the American heartland, and a...
Of Careers, Criminals, and Creative Writers Theodore Dreiser: An Amateur Laborer; University of Pennsylvania Press; Philadelphia. Nelson Algren: The Devil’s Stocking;Arbor House; New York. By the time the average American child has reached adolescence, he has been asked hundreds of times by solicitous relatives and politely curious strangers, “What are you going to be when...
Of Isms and Idolatry The Economic System of Free Enterprise: Its Judeo-Christian Values and Philosophical Concepts; Edited by Paul C. Goelz; St. Mary’s University Press; San Antonio, TX. During their relatively short but incredibly bloody existence as a world historical force, Marxists have murdered millions of men, women, and children, largely without regret. Many Marxists, however,...
Seth Cagin and Philip Dray: Hollywood Films of the Seventies: Sex, Drugs, Violence, Rock ‘n’ Roll, and Politics; Harper & Row; New York. One of the big blows to the underground press in America in the 1960’s was an ad campaign staged by a major record company that used such toy-gun revolutionary slogans as “The...
Fluff John Bernard Myers: Tracking the Marvelous: A Life in the New York Art World; Random House, New York. Books — paper ones, not those cassettes that are now hanging on racks in bookstores for the busy executives who would like to listen to a paragraph or two while not making deals on their cars’...
Building It’s always with pleasure that we come upon a volume by Saul Bellow, for he is a writer with talent and, more importantly, vision, a man who can meld the quotidian and the profound into a unified, intellectually compelling narrative. With the case of Him With His Foot in His Mouth and Other Stories...
Screen Zoology Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes; Directed by Hugh Hudson; Screenplay by P. H. Vazak and Michael Austin, based on Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Buroughs; Warner Brothers. Greystoke raises a large number of questions, most of which will not be addressed here. For example, there’s the question...
Be True to Your School Ernest L. Boyer, High School, A Report on Secondary Education in America; Harper & Row; New York. by Carlisle G. Packard In 1955, two-thirds of Americans asked by a Gallup poll indicated that they would be willing to pay more taxes if the increase were applied to raising teachers’ salaries. In...
Slime After Slime Star 80; Written and Directed by Bob Fosse; Ladd Company/Warner Brothers. by Stephen Macaulay An ad for Star 80 claims that it is considered “One of the Year’s [1983] Ten Best” by a number of people who should know; lest anyone have doubts, the claimants are listed. One man, apparently, just couldn’t...
Aloof and Awry George H. Douglas: Edmund Wilson’s America; The University Press of Kentucky; Lexington, KY. Henry David Thoreau went to Walden Pond, so he told the world, to get away from people. But the reader of Walden may wonder with James Russell Lowell if Thoreau is not just a poseur who actually wants “a...