A. J. P. Taylor: A Personal History; Atheneum; New York. With the exception of Edward Gibbon, there have been few great historians who have written their autobiographies. The reason for this should be fairly clear. While some historians, such as Macaulay or Mommsen, led interesting lives, and some, such as Lewis Namier, are interesting...
Hours—or, rather, weeks—spent with the 2006-07 NCAA football bowls may suggest something wrong not only with the priorities of higher education but with the imperial rituals of the nation. There are a lot of cheerleaders and fight songs and marching bands and rowdy fans and excruciatingly bad renditions of “The Star-Spangled Banner” and excellent tailgate...
Over at Takimag, Chronicles contributing editor Tom Piatak has a thought-provoking piece on the proposal to extend $25 to $50 billion in government-backed loans to the Big Three automakers. Among other points completely ignored by those who reflexively shout “Let them die!” whenever the American auto industry is mentioned are, as Tom notes, that as...
The public discourse in both hemispheres seems to be legitimizing the coming of World War III. These are interesting—if not terrifying—times.
If you live in an older section of town, this may already have happened to you. You wake up in a cold sweat. For the past 15 years, you and your husband have lovingly restored an old Victorian house. It was pretty decrepit when you started; now, it is an object of pride and beauty. ...
Starring Paul Newman and Robert Redford, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid was a smash success when it was released in 1969. Surprisingly, the movie generally follows the actual events of Butch Cassidy’s outlaw life. It’s a fun romp from beginning to end. Most of the casting is not bad for Hollywood: Believe it or...
“The North Korean regime is causing tremendous problems and is something that has to be dealt with, and probably dealt with rapidly.” So President Trump told reporters in the Rose Garden this week. But how this is to be done “rapidly” is not so easy to see. North Korea has just returned to us Otto...
For all its many faults, the Obama administration has scored one notable success: It has done significantly better than its recent Republican and Democratic predecessors in normalizing relations with Russia. Washington’s visceral antagonism toward Moscow needed to be replaced by a more pragmatic, mutually beneficial relationship. The “Reset” has been imperfectly applied, but its conceptual...
The recent attack on New York City’s World Trade Center has once again reinforced in Western minds that terrorism is a purely Middle Eastern phenomenon, and that terms like “Palestinian,” “Shi’ite,” and “Muslim fundamentalist” are virtual synonyms for “terrorist.” There is no room here to discuss the damage that such a view has had on...
In January, I was tasked by the London Daily Telegraph to track Rick Santorum through the wilds of New Hampshire. Following his impressive gains in Iowa, many were giving Santorum good odds for winning the Granite State’s presidential primary. His appeal was a mix of religion and class war. At an Elks Lodge in Salem,...
The revolt against the Establishment continues. The three leading contenders for the Republican nomination for president – Donald Trump, Ben Carson and Carly Fiorina – never have held political office. Now House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, has been pushed out for a lack of accomplishment. Consider: In 2010, Republicans stormed back into majority status in...
The ship of state is without a captain. The willingness by so many to put party and programs ahead of the best interests of the country is appalling.
Another eventful night at Aspinalls, and, somewhere between four in the morning and daybreak, for the thousandth time, I catch myself asking the same thing. How do I explain to a normal person, to a disinterested layman who has never walked down Curzon Street, what goes on in the gambler’s soul? Doubtless this can be...
Frost/Nixon Produced by Imagine Entertainment and Studio Canal Directed by Ron Howard Screenplay by Peter Morgan Distributed by Universal Pictures On August 9, 1974, the day Richard Nixon officially resigned from the presidency, I discovered just how rabid political hatred could become short of taking up arms. I was in my faculty cubicle after...
An all-night homosexual “circuit” party called Cherry Jubilee’s “Main Event” took place in Washington, D.C., on April 13, 1996. The dance party featured public nudity, illicit sexual activity, and illegal drug use. Among the sponsors of the gay festivities were a GOP congressman and a host of corporations. A federal building, the Andrew W. Mellon...
Who weeps, who languishes, who darts anxious glances at the clock just about the time Congress goes on vacation? The media, of course. With Congress out of town, what’s to report on, what’s to wring the hands over? As we all acknowledge, Washington, D.C., is the center of the galaxy. When Congress is in session...
Every city needs cemeteries, and not just for the obvious reason. Like public buildings and monuments, they are a visible—and spiritual—link to the city’s past, a reminder that others have traveled the path that we trod, and still others will follow in our footsteps. Placed prominently on the edge of residential or commercial areas or...
Last year, in a span of less than six months, President Clinton vetoed the congressional ban on partial-birth abortion, thereby positioning himself, based on public-opinion surveys of the procedure, as an abortion extremist; and spoke publicly, more than once, about his desire, now or in the future, to adopt a child. (His current position on...
If New York’s attorney general can smear and destroy an online publication simply because she does not agree with its contents, there’s no meaningful free speech in America anymore.
“Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe,” says the Holy Bible (Exodus 21:24-25). No criminal law ever written is simpler and more appropriate than these ancient Hebrew verses. Similarly, under Islamic law someone caught stealing can have his hand cut off....
No matter how the vote turns out on Thursday in Scotland, either for independence or continued union with Britain, the disintegration of the Old Continent appears almost inevitable. Already the British government has conceded that, even if the Scots vote for union, Edinburgh will receive greater powers to rule itself. Cheering for the breakup of...
On March 19, the New York Times reported: “The Fed said it would purchase an additional $750 billion worth of government-guaranteed mortgage-backed securities, on top of the $500 billion that it is currently in the process of buying. In addition, the Fed said it would buy up to $300 billion worth of longer-term Treasury securities...
This book joins dozens of others that have been written over the past two years with the goal of subjecting President George W. Bush’s foreign policy to critical scrutiny. Clyde Prestowitz’s objections are often justified—notably on the Middle East—and stated with clarity. His recommended remedies reflect a strong One World liberal bias, however, while failing...
After years of complaining about liability lawsuits against doctors and businessmen that award millions to plaintiffs and enrich unscrupulous lawyers, conservatives may finally have a few lawsuits they can support. Across the country, victims of illegal-alien crime are filing suit against businessmen who hire them and cities that protect them. In other words, leftists who...
“Extraordinary, isn’t it? I’ve been hearing all about COP,” said the queen to the duchess of Cornwall. “Still don’t know who is coming. … We only know about people who are not coming. … It’s really irritating when they talk but they don’t do.” Queen Elizabeth II was expressing her exasperation at the possible number...
The “conspiracy theorist” moniker has long been the left’s preferred label to shut down anyone who notices what they’re up to.
Anti-Semitism, said August Bebel, was the “socialism of fools.” Murray Rothbard has responded similarly to the reckless imputation of anti-Semitic motives by neoconservatives and their clients, saying that “Anti-anti-Semitism has become the conservatism of fools.” The non-responsiveness of journalists and intellectuals to the gentile-bashing of Alan Dershowitz suggests that the problem underlined by Professor Rothbard...
Boomer parents are frustrated by their lack of grandchildren. Meanwhile, millennials complain about the lack of romantic partners. Never fear, technology has provided a solution! No longer must millennials date to find the love of their life, marry, and have children. Now they can shop online to find the perfect person to breed with before...
The national Italian elections so feared by Brussels, European liberals, and other would-be unifiers across the Continent have come and gone after having given the officials of the European Union “une mauvaise soirée,” as Marine Le Pen expressed it. The results are a dramatic victory for the right, for “populism,” and for antiestablishmentarianism generally. The...
“Who is she that looketh forth as the morning, fair as the moon . . . terrible as an army with banners?” —Song of Songs 6:10 “Si direbbe che persino la luna si è affrettata stasera—osservatelo in alto—a guardare a questo spettacolo.” (“One might almost think that the moon—just look at him up there—hurried...
“The United States of America—the greatest potential force, material, moral, and spiritual, in the world.” —G. Lowes Dickinson For Paul Johnson, American history was a non-subject in his days at Oxford and its School of Modern History in the 1940’s. “Nothing was said of America, except insofar as it lay on...
Political magazines have long relied on donors to ensure their continued existence. This is true of Chronicles, but it’s also been true of mainstream organs of conservatism such as the National Review. William F. Buckley, Jr., would often pen letters to donors which asserted that the magazine was “dead broke.” In one such letter from...
A strongly shared sense of right and wrong has maintained a working peace and harmony within many societies over long periods. This is probably what saw the class-ridden British through an empire and two world wars. It is what kept the South ...
“Every virtue is included in the idea of justice, and every just man is good.” —Theognis John Paul Stevens is the only U.S. Supreme Court justice to have graduated from the law school where I teach; Steven Breyer was one of my law-school teachers; David Souter may be the most adept at arcane constitutional-law doctrine;...
” . . . knew every quirk within lust’s labyrinth and were professed critic in lechery.” —Ben Jonson Cracks are appearing in the idol of high culture fabricated by the Victorians. Matthew Arnold eloquently expressed the vision of the educated person who joins moral commitment with breadth of vision and transcends the narrowness of religion...
American literature, Wallace Stegner once observed, is not so much about place as motion: we are a restless people, and we write restless books that hurtle us from A to B with a blur to mark our passage. Discounting Stegner’s own lovely evocations of place in books like Wolf Willow and Grossing to Safety, one...
With BLM, as with many other dominant social themes, the problem is not just the organization; it actually is the idea—or more significantly, the function of the idea in the continued transformation of Western society.
According to the latest opinion poll, published on July 16, President Putin’s approval rating among different segments of Russia’s electorate has risen to an unprecedented 66 percent. This may change quickly, however, if he comes to be perceived as weak and indecisive in handling the next stage of the Ukrainian crisis – the one that...
We whose parents read to us the Bible, the Brothers Grimm, Mother Goose, Hans Christian Anderson, Reynard the Fox, Pilgrim’s Progress, and Aesop’s Fables know almost by heart the story of “The Country Mouse and the Town Mouse.” This is the version translated by the English scholars George Tyler Townsend and Thomas James: Once upon...
At dinner, ten-year-old Johnny is sullen and uncommunicative. It has been a bad day. His parents pass off his ill humor as “going through a phase.” Actually, it was an easy day—taken up with “another stupid school assembly.” Johnny had sat there, bored, listening to people drone on about diversity and tolerance. When a lesbian...
Where capitalism is “relatively benign of itself,” as Chilton Williamson, Jr., wrote when commenting on Pope Francis’s encyclical Laudato Si’ (“Church and State,” Editorials) in the September issue, it is inaccurately named. The word capitalism means that what matters most to capitalists is capital. Capital is wealth used to gain more. That suggests that what...
The U.S. black population has been disproportionately devastated by the practice of abortion, yet many black leaders have been cajoled into dutifully mouthing the abortion politics of their white leftist overlords.
As he completes his third week in office Donald Trump has already stunned the world with his “shock and awe” campaign to keep promises made when he was a candidate. The mere fact of a politician doing what he said he would do seems to have unsettled the nerves of his opponents. What is called...
Sir Elton John would like to “ban religion completely” because it stirs up “hatred toward gay people.” Like so many giants of the entertainment industry, Elton John probably does not hate religion per se but only Christianity. Christophobia is the religion of Hollywood. Ask Barbra Streisand; ask the top brass at Disney or DreamWorks. The...
First Man Produced by Wyck Godfrey, Marty Bowen, Isaac Klausner, and Damien Chazelle Directed by Damien Chazelle Screenplay by Josh Singer from the biography by James R. Hansen Distributed by Universal Pictures Black 47 Produced by Fastnet Films and the Irish Film Board Directed by Lance Daly Screenplay by P. J. Dillon Distributed by IFC...
“You know,” he said, “I wouldn’t have let your family in, either.” Standing in a conference room at the Congress Hotel in downtown Chicago, Sam held my gaze in that sideways glance of his, waiting to gauge my reaction. “I understand,” I said. “And I agree. You shouldn’t have. But I’m here now, so let’s...
“When we get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, we shall become as corrupt as Europe.” —Thomas Jefferson This snowball of a book, gathering mass as it accelerates, is studded with accretions and revisions. A work of cultural criticism rather than of mere literary or even social history, it seems to...
The West will come to regret dismissing the foundations of civilized society as “social issues” and exporting radical, woke ideologies as a means of combatting the pathologies that already exist abroad. Instead of offering liberation, we have only pushed these peoples toward additional grievances and inspired more violence.
Our little house of wood, a century old, nestles in the countryside in the county of Lotbinière, somewhat to the south of the city of Quebec. There I live with my husband and our five children. Last fall, as my husband and I piled cords of wood in the cellar of our little house, I...
Heather Mac Donald is a very good journalist, and conservatives are in her debt for her work dealing with immigration, crime, and the realities of urban life. But Mac Donald, an atheist, is puzzled by religion. Last Sunday, this puzzlement took the form of a short piece at the Secular Right website, where Mac Donald...