Wilfred M. McClay

The Life You Save May Be Your Own: An American Pilgrimage. by Paul Elie Farrar, Straus & Giroux. 555 pp. $27. If the influence of religion has been largely elided or submerged in mainstream accounts of American intellectual history, then the role of Roman Catholicism in that history would have . . . . Continue Reading »

It is a rare thing for a work of intellectual history to win a Pulitzer Prize. This is partly because of the inherently knotty and abstract character of the subject matter. But it is also, alas, because the field seems to attract more than its share of the world’s most turgid writing. It is . . . . Continue Reading »

It is my impression that many of the finest and most stimulating historians of the present generation are historians of religion, and of Christianity in particular—and, furthermore, that they are men and women who are themselves more often than not serious and engaged Christians. The . . . . Continue Reading »

No one should be surprised by the recent decision of the New Jersey Department of Education to remove the study of such Founding figures as George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Benjamin Franklin from their state’s history requirements. Though unusually foolish and indefensible, it is but the . . . . Continue Reading »

Christianity has always had a complicated, even paradoxical, relationship to the world. It is, first and foremost, an incarnational faith, which means that it is neither entirely transcendent nor entirely worldly in character. It steadily partakes of both. The Word became Flesh, and dwelt among us. . . . . Continue Reading »

The discipline of history is the science of incommensurable things and unrepeatable events. Which is to say, it is no science at all. We had best be clear about that from the outset. This melancholy truth may be a bitter pill to swallow, especially for those zealous modern sensibilities that crave . . . . Continue Reading »

Reading a new edition of Allen Tate’s collected essays ( Essays of Four Decades , ISI Books, 640 pp., $29.95) is at once a stimulating and dispiriting experience. In encountering (or re“encountering) the mind behind this rich and varied collection, one catches a pleasing glimpse of the days . . . . Continue Reading »

The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), in partnership with the White House Millennium Council, announced in 1999 a “millennium project” entitled “My History Is America’s History.” The project’s literature enjoins us to “follow your family’s story and you will discover . . . . Continue Reading »

We’d done business over the phone for years, but I hadn’t actually seen her for at least a decade, and I was greatly looking forward to it. A businesswoman of immense energy, competence, and focus, she had worked punishingly hard for many years, and was now reaping the rewards. The promotion . . . . Continue Reading »

Few small American towns exude a more winning charm than Concord, Massachusetts. Much of its charm flows from the respectful but unpretentious way it has preserved its past—an uncommon achievement in today’s America. On the northern edge of town stands an evocative reminder of revolutionary . . . . Continue Reading »