Sour ’68

Sour ’68

by Joseph Bottum and Justin L. Blessinger Ever feel like 2018 is 1968 come back from the grave? Hello Darkness, my old friend, Simon and Garfunkel sang in the 1960s, I’ve come to talk with you again. Fifty years on, as 2018 winds down to a sour expiration, like the...
Permanent Like Achilles

Permanent Like Achilles

Reviewed by Patrick J. Burns Why Bob Dylan Matters by Richard F. Thomas. HarperCollins Publishers, 2017. Hardcover, 368 pages, $25. Bob Dylan took Latin. I didn’t know this before reading Why Bob Dylan Matters, an insightful reflection on Dylan’s investment and,...

Reoccupying the City

TO THE POINT: TUESDAY, OCTOBER 24, 1967 Will we presently behold an exodus from the suburbs back to the city? Such a development would do more to save our urban life than could any amount of urban-renewal and model-cities subsidies. It is not impossible. Many...

The Necessity for a General Culture

“What Does Culture Mean?” From America’s British Culture, pp. 1–3 This slim book is a summary account of the culture that the people of the United States have inherited from Britain. Sometimes this is called the Anglo-Saxon culture—although it is not simply English,...
Feeding the Little Platoons

Feeding the Little Platoons

Frederick the Great observed that his army marched on its stomach. If we aim to civilize, not conquer, what should we feed Burke’s little platoons? At her first dinner party, Agnes Jekyll entertained John Ruskin, Edward Burne-Jones, and Robert Browning. This is a bit...