John Paul II firmly believed that we need fear only thoughtlessness and lack of courage. Just as Czechs and Slovaks maintained patience in the face of tyranny for four decades, we ourselves have reason to expect that current trends, however disheartening in the short term, will not endure forever. Continue Reading »
For some time, an argument has been made that the liberal left, in refusing to examine the problems of Islam, has betrayed its Enlightenment roots. That is, while secular, feminist, and protective of free speech in dealing with its Western peers, the liberal left has been accused of abandoning its heritage in its quest for political correctness regarding Muslims. Continue Reading »
Thanks again, pomocon commenters—I benefitted from a fine thread below, learning about a whole slew of films about communism. Of course, one of the questions asked was, why haven’t there been more films about communism? In particular, why have there not been more Hollywood , . . . . Continue Reading »
I’m currently working on an introduction to a book I’m co-editing on one of the greatest films about communism, The Lives of Others , and I’m wondering what other films there are that portray life under communist oppression that our readers know about. There don’t seem to be . . . . Continue Reading »
Another of Tocqueville’s possibilities, that is, that sometimes it’s the “laws” that shape the “mores.” For never did laws/regime/ideology degrade mores more than in the communist countries. Kopplekamm’s stunning slide show of East Berlin buildings . . . . Continue Reading »
The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repressionby stéphane courtois, nicolas werth, jean-louis panné, andrzej paczkowski, karel bartosek, and jean-louis margolinharvard university press, 856 pages, $37.50 Publication of The Black Book of Communism in November 1997 in France stirred up a . . . . Continue Reading »
Past Imperfect: French Intellectuals 1944–56 by tony judt university of california press, 348 pages, $30 The political attitudes of French intellectuals with respect to war, repression, and especially Russian Communism in the decade immediately following the war is an amazing story. In Tony Judt, . . . . Continue Reading »
Anyone eager for an inside and in-depth exploration of the New Russian Revolution of August 1991 can thank a watchful Providence that James H. Billington, the Librarian of Congress and America’s foremost historian of Russian culture, just happened to be in Moscow on library business when . . . . Continue Reading »
Toward the end of this collection of essays, Professor Iván Völgyes gently chastises his brethren in the history and political science confraternities for the fact that “all too frequently … many of us in our profession … made compromises with the Communist regimes” of the old . . . . Continue Reading »
“Workers of the world . . . forgive me.” —Graffiti on a statue of Karl Marx Moscow, August 1991 The monuments have fallen now; the faces are changed. In the graveyards the martyrs have been rehabilitated, and everywhere the names are restored. In a revolutionary . . . . Continue Reading »
Subscribe
Latest Issue
Support First Things
