Category: Society & Culture

During Joe Biden’s 2020 campaign for president, when his fortunes were at their nadir, Joe Biden promised that he would nominate the first black woman to the United States Supreme Court. He reportedly made this pledge to James Clyburn (D-S.C.), the powerful African-American congressman, in return . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now to access...

Late author Michael Crichton in 1975 wrote one of his best novels, The Great Train Robbery. Set in England in the 1850s, it is a roman à clef that tells the story of . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now to access the full article and gain access to other exclusive features. Already a subscriber?...

“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 . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now to access the full article and gain access to other exclusive features. Already a subscriber?...

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 developed this power to such an extent that in . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe...

Before he appeared at his first solo news conference of 2022, President Joe Biden knew he had a communications problem he had to deal with. Namely, how to get off the defensive. How to avoid spending his time with the White House press corps defending his decisions and explaining . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe...

It is commonly assumed that the word “Nazi” is the contraction of Adolf Hitler’s political party, the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (NSDAP), or the National Socialist German Workers’ Party. But if that were true, then why did the Nazis hate being called “Nazi?” When the Nazis came to . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now to...

There was a very odd occurrence in the “Cradle of the Confederacy” in July 1987: Presidential aspirant and civil rights activist Jesse Jackson paid a visit to the Montgomery, Alabama, home of George Corley Wallace. It had been 126 years since Jefferson Davis stood on the steps . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now to...

Western elites recently heaped scorn on the Hungarian government for passing child-protection legislation. The Land of the Magyars outlawed the portrayal of homosexuality and “sex reassignment” surgeries in school education material and television programs aimed at minors. Hungarians view the law as protecting children from radical ideologies about . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now...

Conservatism has not conserved anything. This claim may appear ridiculous to those plagued by unwavering faith in the Republican Party and the conservative movement. After all, is it not conservatism that is holding the line against the left’s tyrannical agenda? To those in the know, however . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now to access...

I was chairman of the Annual Confederate Flag Day at the North Carolina State Capitol in March of 2019 when our commemoration was besieged by several hundred screaming, raging demonstrators—Antifa-types . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now to access the full article and gain access to other exclusive features. Already a subscriber? Sign in here

The death of the sainted George Floyd has proven to be the ideal pretext for the left to accelerate its campaign of dismantling the markers of American historical identity. With lavish corporate and philanthropic support, radical activists are “resetting” America. This means mandating the instruction of Critical . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now to...

William Appleman Williams (1921-1990) was dean of the New Left School of American diplomatic history. As one of the most influential American historians in the ’60s and ’70s, he gained a national audience for his anti-war, anti-globalist, and anti-imperial views. Odd as it might seem . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now to access the...

What began as an impromptu and uncoordinated eruption of violence in an upstate New York prison soon morphed into a hostage crisis and siege that gripped the nation and claimed the lives of 43 people.   The most famous prison riot in . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now to access the full article and...

To understand contemporary Western culture and politics, I suggest a term for something that is as old as the experience of man, but which has never before settled into institutional permanence. I shall call it noise. What do I mean by this? We must draw a fundamental . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now to...

It seems like every other major American institution is apologizing for racism these days, so why not the American Psychiatric Association (APA)? Back in January, the APA issued an apology for its “ingrained” racism towards black and indigenous people of color (BIPOCs). The APA pledged to develop . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now to access...

When Chronicles asked me to provide a refutation of Donald Trump’s 1776 Commission report (“Rejecting the . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now to access the full article and gain access to other exclusive features. Already a subscriber? Sign in here

The 150th anniversary of Charles Darwin’s The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now to access the full article and gain access to other exclusive features. Already a subscriber? Sign in here

Broad swaths of conservative opinion today would have it that the enemy of the right is some variant of Marxism. But this does not accurately describe people like Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, or CNN’s Jeff Zucker. All the tech and media executives who are . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now to access...

A day like today reminds you of how you got here, of the struggle, of the good in your life—and of a tiger, a lion, and an old man. The sun shines stark white, shimmering in a way that reminds you that it is a star . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now to access...

“Decolonization” is the new badge for right-thinking professors and teachers. The word reveals more about those who use it than about their imaginary oppressors. Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. The great haters in our midst have the word “hate” perpetually on their lips . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now...

Mere pandemics cannot stop the Richard Wagner bibliography from expanding, indeed from metastasizing. Yet, even as the catalogue of new books on the famed, 19th-century German composer expands, “woke” culture threatens to drive him, and the Western civilization he represents, into a state of cancellation. Vast . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now to access...

In may of last year, C. Bradley Thompson published a piece in The American Mind entitled “The Rise and Fall of the Pajama-Boy Nietzscheans,” taking aim at the radical left and its cheerleaders at The New York Times, as well as the unfashionably reactionary . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now to access the full...

A recurrent theme in Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States (1980) is how the prospect of a coalition between poor blacks and poor whites has often struck fear in the hearts of the wealthy classes in American history. Not surprisingly, Zinn longed . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now to access the...

It’s become an accepted opinion that marine biologist Rachel Carson, the author of Silent Spring (1962), was the founder of the modern environmentalist movement. But this may very well be a myth. Recent historical scholarship suggests that this title more likely applies to controversial Stanford University . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now to access...

Mobs loot, burn, and vandalize while politicians advocate defunding the police. A commune was established in Seattle and turned into Lord of the Flies while government did nothing. Blacks demand equal treatment from police despite a violent crime rate many times greater than that of whites, and . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now to access the full...

The death of George Floyd and the reaction that followed have seen an explosion of hysterical accusations, breast-beating, and lying that is extreme even by the standards of the last half-century. It is no exaggeration to say that reason and common sense have largely fled the scene . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now to access...

A few days ago, rioters in Boston defaced the Robert Shaw Memorial, a masterpiece in high relief wrought by Augustus Saint-Gaudens, whom I consider to be, alongside Frederic Remington, the most distinctly American of our sculptors. I am supposing that the attack on the memorial was no mere . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now to...

Are there Bush judges and Obama judges? “No!” said the Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, John Roberts. Judges, he explained during his Senate confirmation hearings, are simply umpires, objectively attempting to follow the rules and call balls and strikes. The chief, let us say . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now to access...

Nothing talks quite like money, and Robert L. Johnson, a wealthy black man who cofounded Black Entertainment Television (BET) four decades ago, lately has been talking about $14 trillion. That’s what it will take, he insists, for whites in this country to make amends to blacks . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now to access the...

Too many conservatives get  Thomas Hobbes wrong. In a recent piece for The Imaginative Conservative, Bradley Birzer argues that the famed 17th century English philosopher is responsible for supplying the recipe for “a collectivist horror.”  He credits Hobbes with having “inspired countless tyrants,” and says . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now to access the full article...

COVID-19 has rendered Europe’s right-wing parties all but obsolete, at least in the near-term. Nationalist parties like Alternative für Deutschland (AfD, “Alternative for Germany”) and the Dutch Partij voor de Vrijheid (PVV, “Party for Freedom”) had built their electoral clout . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now to access the full article and gain access to other exclusive features. Already...

I have a passing interest in a first-century rhetorician and Hellenized Egyptian named Apion, who is the target of a famous polemic by Flavius Josephus, a member of the Jewish priestly class who became the court historian of the Flavian emperors. Published in Greek but known by its . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now to...

On July 15, 1870, the French Empire mobilized its armed forces, and the following day, the North German Confederation—led by Prussia—followed suit. Once the Franco-Prussian War was declared, actual combat began with startling rapidity. The Prussians won a decisive victory at Sedan at the start of . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now to access...

In 1941, bestselling novelist Dorothy L. Sayers (1893-1957) ignited a religious controversy that reverberated throughout England. Leading to discussion in Parliament, her BBC radio plays about Jesus were accused of being subversive and irreverent. Ironically, Sayers was motivated not by a defiance of tradition but by an intense . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now...

Over the centuries, plague has been understood variously as a purely natural phenomenon, astrological fatalism, the judgment of God, or, most perplexing, a manifestation of divine mercy. Since plague is one of those natural disasters whose origin cannot be assigned to human agency, it can pose seemingly insoluble moral . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe...

Is Antonin Scalia’s originalism—indeed, constitutional self-government itself—passé? The eternal temptation to read one’s own values into the Constitution beguiles even religious conservatives espousing natural law. The U.S. Constitution is the “supreme law of the land,” whose ultimate interpretation is entrusted, by . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now to access the full article and gain...