Why did Eve bite the apple? Milton puts this question at the center of Paradise Lost, the greatest long poem in English. Why did Eve listen to Satan, pluck the apple from the tree, and take a bite? This temptation bears on us now. Satan always hides in plain sight. So it’s no surprise . . . . Continue Reading »
Cities have figured prominently in the Christian imagination: City of God, City of Jerusalem, the Heavenly City. The single English word “city” has varied referents that easily blur our vision. But the image has lodged itself firmly into our religious politics. The “secular city” (a phrase . . . . Continue Reading »
Crime-fighting mayors brought about an urban renaissance. It ended gradually, then suddenly.
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An observer of a Spenglerian bent might just write Venice off, taking the floods that afflict the city with increasing frequency as the finishing touches on a long-running spectacle of political, economic, and cultural decline. That decline, spanning half a millennium, has by now reduced the city to . . . . Continue Reading »
Cities invite hubris—not only outsized political ambitions but also intellectual ambitions. Continue Reading »
Jane Jacobs knew that, without ordinary people, their ordinary loves, and their often-extraordinary faith, the public square is an inhospitable and even dangerous place. Continue Reading »
Some influential books fade as their ideas become conventional wisdom, but Jacobs’s The Death and Life of Great American Cities remains as startling as when it appeared in . . . . Continue Reading »
In a speech delivered in October 2014, David Brooks offered a fanciful contrast devised by Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik between the external and internal Adams. External Adam, or “Adam One,” pursues an “external résumé” of career advancement, rising status, and financial success. Adam Two cultivates “eulogy virtues,” his motto is “Charity. Love. Redemption,” and he values a “serene inner character” and a “quiet but solid sense of right and wrong” more than his portfolio. Assertive Adam One wants to “venture forth,” while virtuous Adam Two desires to “return to roots.” Continue Reading »
Since the official validation of Christianity in the fourth century, ecclesiastical leaders have built places of worship in central and highly visible locations. They were not motivated just by grandeur and power. In addition, they sensed that, to be authentic, Christian presence in the world must . . . . Continue Reading »
The Exile: Cuba in the Heart of Miami by david rieff simon & schuster, 220 pages, $21 City on the Edge: the transformation of miami by alejandro portes and alex stepick university of california press, 281 pages, $25 As the Fidel Castro deathwatch reaches its thirty-fifth anniversary, the . . . . Continue Reading »
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