In Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe, 1944-1956 , Anne Applebaum highlights how the Soviets focused their efforts in Eastern Europe on crushing civil society, more than on crushing capitalism. As TNR reviewer Christopher Caldwell summarizes, “Applebaum credits the historian Stuart . . . . Continue Reading »
Judith Shulevitz offers a novel (ha!) defense of the liberal arts in the latest TNR . Liberal arts should be supported because they produce science fiction and science fiction inspires scientific breaththroughs that make a lot of money. Shulevitz’s challenge: “Take any world-altering . . . . Continue Reading »
James Jordan discusses biblical chronology with Pastor Ralph Smith at the Trinity House site. Hit the link and look to the bottom of the page. . . . . Continue Reading »
What’s the relationship between faith and reason? That should be answered with a question: Which reason are you talking about? Aza Goudriaan ( Reformed Orthodoxy And Philosophy, 16251750: Gisbertus Voetius, Petrus Van Mastricht, And Anthonius Driessen , 56) notes that Petrus van Mastricht . . . . Continue Reading »
Wilhelm von Humboldt set out on the ambitious project “to compare the languages of the world and the worlds that they permit us to enter into” (James Underhill, Humboldt, Worldview, and Language , 16). To do so, he had to formulate a novel view of language over against the available . . . . Continue Reading »
Adriaan C. Neele concludes his chapter on Petrus van Mastricht’s doctrine of the Trinity by highlighting the prominence that Mastricht gives to the covenant ( Petrus Van Mastricht (1630-1706): Reformed Orthodoxy: Method and Piety , 278): “Mastricht carefully exposited and formulated the . . . . Continue Reading »
Powell ( The Moral Tradition of American Constitutionalism: A Theological Interpretation ) argues that the American system is largely a product of Enlightenment liberalism, embodying many of the features of the ideal Enlightened polities constructed by Locke, Montesquieu and others. He recognizes . . . . Continue Reading »
In The Moral Tradition of American Constitutionalism: A Theological Interpretation , Duke Law’s H. Jefferson Powell describes the contribution that common law made to the American legal tradition, highlighting the fact that common law represented a tradition of legal story-telling into which . . . . Continue Reading »
The always-innovative Michael Goulder wonders how and why redactors might have changed the text of Isaiah, as critics believe ( Isaiah As Liturgy , 1-2) : “Glosses in the margin may be believable for brief phrases like even the King of Assyria , but many of the supposed insertions are of a . . . . Continue Reading »
A reader asked Orwell whether he intended Animal Farm to condemn revolution as such. Orwell said no: “Re. your query about Animal Farm . Of course I intended it primarily as a satire on the Russian revolution. But I did mean it to have a wider application in so much that I meant that that . . . . Continue Reading »
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