Mary Ann Glendon

I Am Charlotte Simmons by Tom Wolfe Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 646 pp. $28.95 When the heroine of I Am Charlotte Simmons ”a smart, beautiful, small-town girl”sits down to write her mother a letter about freshman life in “Dupont University,” it takes her hours to produce a . . . . Continue Reading »

When Otto von Bismarck established the world’s first social security system, he never dreamed that a large proportion of the populace would live long enough to draw pensions. With a tight grip on the public purse, the Iron Chancellor set age sixty-five as an eligibility threshold that few . . . . Continue Reading »

To understand fully the incalculable effects of Roe v. Wade it is necessary (though of course not sufficient) to understand the historical and legal context in which it occurred. When the decision came down in February 1973, the nation was embroiled in the Vietnam War and President Nixon had just . . . . Continue Reading »

Throughout the twentieth century, leaders of the Catholic Church implored lay men and women with increasing urgency to be more active as Catholics in society, and”since Vatican II”to become more involved in the internal affairs of the Church. The earlier call found a warm response among . . . . Continue Reading »

Mary Ann Glendon Copyright (c) 1999 First Things 96 (October 1999): 42-47. In 1749 the Academy of Dijon offered a prize for the best essay on the question, “Has the restoration of the sciences and the arts contributed to the improvement of mores?” Most of the contestants must have vied . . . . Continue Reading »

Why does Tom Wolfe’s latest book make the mandarins of taste so uncomfortable? John Updike took a good deal of space in the New Yorker to declare that A Man in Full was “entertainment, not literature.” Norman Mailer in the New York Review of Books dismissed the novel as an “adroit . . . . Continue Reading »

It can hardly have escaped the notice of persons interested in religion and public life that there has been a good deal of public sorrow expressed lately concerning errors or misdeeds committed by representatives or members of the Catholic Church at various times in history. Recently, a diligent . . . . Continue Reading »

Women and the Common Life: Love, Marriage, and Feminism By Christopher Lasch Edited by Elisabeth Lasch-Quinn Norton, 192 pages, $23 Historian and cultural critic Christopher Lasch occupied a peculiar niche in contemporary social thought. His books, especially Haven in a Heartless World (1977) and . . . . Continue Reading »

Augustine and the Limits of Politics By Jean Bethke Elshtain University of Notre Dame Press, 118 pages, $21.95 In this engaging series of meditations, Jean Bethke Elshtain makes a convincing case that Augustine of Hippo (354“430 a.d. ) is a saint for our times. Originally presented as a . . . . Continue Reading »

”Feminism is not the Story of My Life”: How Today’s Feminist Elite Has Lost Touch with the Real Concerns of Women By Elizabeth Fox-Genovese Doubleday, 288 pages, $23.95 This timely and well-documented book addresses the puzzle of why nearly two-thirds of American women embrace many . . . . Continue Reading »