Peter J. Leithart

In 1991, Jody Williams and two other people formed the “International Campaign to Ban Landmines.” During the following six years, the group had entered into a coalition with over 1000 Non-Government Organizations and got 121 nations to sign a treaty to ban landmines, which took effect . . . . Continue Reading »

Dee Hock, founder and CEO of VISA Corporation, describes the rise and size of the company: “In 1968 the VISA community was no more than a set of beliefs and a vague concept. In 1970 it was born. Today, twenty-nine years later, its products are created by 22,000 owner-member financial . . . . Continue Reading »

Peter Drucker notes that “the distinction between parent and daughter [companies] is increasingly blurring. In the transnational company, design is done anyplace within the system. Major pharmaceutical companies now have research laboratories in five or six countries, in the United States, . . . . Continue Reading »

We are living through a communications revolution. Maybe: While submarine fiber-optic cable is being laid under the world’s oceans (according to Anderson, it will be “the largest man-made structure in the world”), about 70% of the people in the world have never made a phone call. . . . . Continue Reading »

As an example of “cultural hybridization,” Walter Truett Anderson describes the residents of the German village of Roderau, where a number of Germans are fascinated with American Indian culture: “the chief Indian in Roderaui is Gerhard Fischer, who prefers to go by the name of Old . . . . Continue Reading »

Walter Truett Anderson says, “The postmodern condition is not an artistic movement or a cultural fad or an intellectual theory - although it produces all of those and is in some ways defined by them. It is what inevitably happens as people everywhere begin to see that there are many beliefs, . . . . Continue Reading »

Walter Truett Anderson suggests that postmoderns may be distinguished from others by the fact that they not only have a culture, but know that they have it. Or, put differently: “You do not choose to be premodern. If you choose, you are at least modern. If you know you are choosing, you are . . . . Continue Reading »

Christopher Lasch pointed to the therapeutic dimensions of 1960s radicalism: “Acting out fantasies does not end repressions . . . it merely dramatizes the permissible limits of antisocial behavior. In the sixties and early seventies, radicals who transgressed these limits, under the illusion . . . . Continue Reading »

Clem Whittaker, a pioneer in the political use of media during the 1930s and 40s, candidly explained his theory of campaigning in a speech to the PUblic Relations Society of America: “There are thousands of experts bidding for every man’s attention - and every man has a limited amount . . . . Continue Reading »

Walter Truett Anderson points to the US invasion of Grenada (1983) as an example of a postmodern public-relations war: “its primary purpose was to give the American public a ‘win,’ to flex the muscles of the Reagan administration, to allow Americans to (in the phrase current at . . . . Continue Reading »