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David P. Goldman is a senior editor of First Things.

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Hegel Vindicated

From the March 2024 Print Edition

Klaus Vieweg’s eight-hundred-page biography of Hegel made something of a sensation when the German original appeared in 2019. More lies have been told about Hegel than about any other philosopher, Vieweg averred, and the biggest lie of all painted Hegel as an apologist for the Prussian . . . . Continue Reading »

T. S. Eliot and the Jews

From the March 2021 Print Edition

There recur in the work of ­T. S. Eliot two obsessions that make one cringe: his Jew-­hatred and his contempt for Shakespeare’s Hamlet. The first is sometimes excused as a reflection of ambient prejudice, the second as critical crankiness. In fact, these obsessions have a common source. The . . . . Continue Reading »

The Original Nation

From the November 2019 Print Edition

No one views Israel with indifference. As an old joke puts it, a philo-Semite is just an anti-Semite who likes Jews. Bari Weiss quotes this joke (to disparage Donald Trump) without grasping its deeper meaning. Anti-Semitism and philo-Semitism respond to the same thing, namely, God’s promise to the . . . . Continue Reading »

Pagan Horror

From the February 2018 Print Edition

Hitler’s Monsters: A Supernatural History of the Third Reichby eric kurlanderyale, 448 pages, $35 That Hitler and his inner circle were mad is not a matter of controversy. The source and character of their madness, though, is subject to debate. Eric Kurlander wants us to understand Nazi ideology . . . . Continue Reading »

Love With No Future

From the January 2017 Print Edition

The Ring of Truth: The Wisdom of Wagner’s Ring of the Nibelungby roger scrutonallen lane, 368 pages, $19.99Of all the personalities that produced enduring art, Richard Wagner’s was perhaps the most repulsive. A blackmailer, philanderer, deadbeat, paranoid, and anti-Semite, Wagner invites his . . . . Continue Reading »