James Finn

One can learn from unfortunate experiences. This truism applies in spades to the World Conference on Human Rights sponsored by the UN and held in Vienna in late June. Unhappily, there is no corresponding truism that guarantees the learning experience will occur. One can only hope that in this case . . . . Continue Reading »

Retreat from the Finland Station: Moral Odysseys in the Breakdown of Communism by Kenneth Murphy Free Press, 415 pages, $24.95 The title of Kenneth Murphy’s work is an obvious allusion to Edmund Wilson’s To the Finland Station, first published in 1940. In that milestone study Wilson . . . . Continue Reading »

John Courtney Murray and the American Civil Conversation edited by Robert P. Hunt and Kenneth L. Grasso Eerdmans, 298 pages, $21.95 paper Toward the end of Vatican Council II (1962-1965), John Courtney Murray, S.J., in the company of other clerics, concelebrated mass with Pope Paul VI. Like most . . . . Continue Reading »

China Misperceived: American Illusions and Chinese Reality by steven w. mosher basic books, 260 pages, $19.95 Driven by the Tiananmen massacre of June 4, 1989, foreign perceptions of China are now being reexamined in a manner reminiscent of earlier foreign perceptions of the Soviet Union. In the . . . . Continue Reading »

Trust the tale and not the teller.d. h. lawrence How can one tell the dancer from the dance?w. b. yeats Graham Greene is a marvel. As long ago as 1966, on the publication of The Comedians, Evelyn Waugh could write: “What staying power you have. It might have been written thirty years ago and . . . . Continue Reading »