From Hope to Hope: On the Mind of Man
James V. Schall, S. J. The second essay of Samuel Johnson’s entries in The Rambler was published on Saturday, March 24, 1750. The essay begins with what must be called a general experience of all mankind, thus including one’s own self-knowledge: “The mind of man is...
The Questions Behind Populism
Vox Populi: The Perils and Promises of Populism edited by Roger Kimball. Encounter Books, 2017. Hardcover, 216 pages, $24. MARLO SAFI Over the course of the 2016 Presidential election, Americans became very familiar with the resurgence of an old “ism”: populism....
Which Philosophers Lived Their Thought?
Lives of the Eminent Philosophers by Diogenes Laertius, translated by Pamela Mensch, edited by James Miller. Oxford University Press, 2018. Hardcover, 720 pages, $45. Frank Freeman When Nietzsche was still a classical philologist, not the Hyperborean philosopher he...
The Dismissed in Revolt
The Great Revolt: Inside the Populist Coalition Reshaping American Politics by Salena Zito and Brad Todd. Crown Forum, 2018. Hardcover, 309 pages, $28. Addison Del Mastro “We as a country cannot just let our fellow Americans be left behind, dismissed because someone...
A Place on the Walls
Thoughts on Home Décor SAM BURNHAM How a home is decorated communicates the essence of the people living there. Even the briefest of glances can give a visitor insight into the personalities, religion, family ties, perhaps even the political inclinations of the...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,...
The Auroras of Helen Vendler
The Ocean, the Bird, and the Scholar: essays on poets & poetry by Helen Vendler. Harvard University Press, 2015. Hardcover, 444 pages, $35. DANIEL JAMES SUNDAHL Helen Vendler’s The Ocean, the Bird, and the Scholar opens with a twelve-page account of her life as a...
The Cinema of Failure
Four films of Terrence Malick. TITUS TECHERA Terrence Malick is American cinema’s one Christian artist and he has now reached his most productive years, his Social Security years. His four recent movies, The Tree of Life (2011), To the Wonder (2012), Knight of...
For America250, @lsheahan enters the fray:
What the American Revolution Secured: Order, Justice, and Freedom
A "revolution not made, but prevented.” Russell Kirk fondly and frequently quoted E. J. Payne’s pithy summary of Burke’s view of the Glorious Revolution.
"So yes, Lord Alfred, perhaps you are right after all. ’Tis not too late to seek a newer world! Perhaps one last Ulyssean adventure remains beyond the sunset, and perhaps some work of noble note may yet be done."