Various

Hitler 1889-1936: Hubris. By Ian Kershaw. Norton. 845 pp. $35 Adolf Hitler is arguably the most important political figure of the twentieth century. His significance rests entirely on what he destroyed or what was destroyed in his name. But who was he? Hitler’s background and family were . . . . Continue Reading »

Copyright (c) 1999 First Things 95 (August/September 1999): 2-10. Blindness on Birth Control? There is so much openhearted sincerity in James Nuechterlein’s “Catholics, Protestants, and Contraception” (April) thatI feel moved to respond. He writes, following J. Budziszewski, that natural law . . . . Continue Reading »

Copyright (c) 1999 First Things 95 (August/September 1999): 12, 20, 40, 48, 54. Glitter At peak of day it starts, Starlings chittering Like bits of broken glass. An autumnal chorale In the crown of sycamore, Whose trunk flakes white Beneath the frangible song, Whose yellowing leaves lap And lave . . . . Continue Reading »

U.S. Foreign Policy in the Twenty-First Century: The Relevance of Realism. By Robert J. Myers. Louisiana State University Press. 184 pp. $24.95 Contemporary writing about America’s role in the world is too often marred by abstruse theorizing or, at the popular level, by oversimplification and . . . . Continue Reading »

Copyright (c) 1999 First Things 94 (June/July 1999): 2-7. Fighting About the Fathers If asked to list current Roman Catholic patristic scholars with whom I have the deepest affinities and the highest respect, surely Robin Darling Young of Catholic University of America would be on that list and . . . . Continue Reading »

Copyright (c) 1999 First Things 94 (June/July 1999): 9,16, 30,35, 39. St. Paul to the Berliners (Romans 11:17) A photograph of a German slum in Toland’s life of Hitler Circa 1932: flags from a dozen windows, Swastikas slightly outnumbering Hammer and Sickle. Behind those tenement doors Are all . . . . Continue Reading »

Living in the Image of God: Jewish Teachings to Perfect the World. By Irving Greenberg with Shalom Freedman. Jason Aronson. 366 pp. $35 Rabbi Irving Greenberg has become one of the most influential Jewish thinkers in America. Although an Orthodox rabbi for his entire career, “Yitz” (as he is . . . . Continue Reading »

Marshall, Marbury, and Judical SupremacyRobert Lowry Clinton’s thesis on “How the Court Became Supreme” (January) is intriguing, but most certainly wrong. According to Professor Clinton, the Supreme Court has gone astray because it has misapplied Marbury v. Madison (1803), which only supports . . . . Continue Reading »

Change Her kitchen, it had been her kitchen twenty years. She put the ginger in the cupboard, turned out the light, opened the back door. The shattered globe of an old moon had spiked itself along the blossoms on their dogwood tree. He said it was over; therefore it was over. All solemn“eyed, . . . . Continue Reading »

Canon and Criterion in Christian Theology: From the Fathers to Feminism. By William J. Abraham. Clarendon. 508 pages, $110. This book proposes a conceptual revolution, the refurbishing of the patristic understanding of canon as first of all a means of grace rather than a criterion of truth and . . . . Continue Reading »