Peter J. Leithart

The first phrase of Song of Songs 1:5 is usually taken as a contrast – “black but lovely,” though some have noted that this is not a necessary translation of the phrase. It seems the most likely, though, that the blackness is seen as a negative, but in spite of her blackness, she . . . . Continue Reading »

Charles Adams ( Those Dirty Rotten taxes: The Tax Revolts that Built America ) notes that the clash between North and South was exacerbated by the Confederate decision to lower tariffs and create a free trade zone. Northern interests recognized that this would ruin their trade and manufacturing, as . . . . Continue Reading »

In his The Industrious Revolution: Consumer Behavior and the Household Economy, 1650 to the Present , Jan de Vries notes connections between the “Confessionalizing” movement of the seventeenth century and the rise of “genteel” standards of taste and consumption: “While . . . . Continue Reading »

INTRODUCTION Throughout the first half of his prophecy, Isaiah addresses the Assyrian threat and its geopolitical consequences (Isaiah 1-12). In a series of six woes in chapters 28-35, he deals the temptation for Judah’s kings to rely on Egypt for protection (e.g., 30:1-5). Then, Yahweh . . . . Continue Reading »

Deuteronomy 6:7: You shall teach them diligently to your sons and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up. We don’t worship simply by putting a service on the calendar and showing up. We put the service on the . . . . Continue Reading »

We don’t offer animals on altars, but the Christian life is more sacrificial than the ancient Jews’, not less. For us, the world is a temple, our lives a continuous offering, our actions moments of a daily liturgy. Paul’s rapid-fire series of instructions in today’s New . . . . Continue Reading »

Joyce Appleby’s Economic Thought and Ideology in Seventeenth-Century England has a forbiddingly monographic title, but don’t be put off. It’s a profound meditation on the earliest construction of modern economic theory, an attempt to explain “how the market becomes central . . . . Continue Reading »

In the latest issue of the NYRB , Mark Lilla takes apart Corey Robin’s recent The Reactionary Mind: Conservatism from Edmund Burke to Sarah Palin . Lilla quotes this from Robin: “Conservatism is the theoretical voice of this animus against the agency of the subordinate classes. It . . . . Continue Reading »

I offer a few simple thoughts about how to think about empires today at http://www.firstthings.com/ . . . . Continue Reading »

Some time ago, a friend remarked that it is scarcely possible to have a sensible discussion of empire these days. What follows is not that discussion, though I hope it is sensible. It is a set of truisms and assertions, some so obvious that it is telling that they have become controversial. My aim is to sketch the contours of a sensible discussion to come… . Continue Reading »