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God and Brexit

When biblical religion collapsed, as it manifestly has in most of Old Europe and too much of New Europe after 1989, commitments to subsidiarity and its respect for difference imploded as well. Continue Reading »

Everyday Barbara Pym

In 1943, mourning the end of a short-lived love affair that would leave her (even months later) sitting “desolately by the fire shivering uncontrollably with an aching head and longing to be cherished,” Barbara Pym recorded walking by a pre-Raphaelite tomb and brooding a little. At this point . . . . Continue Reading »

Spirit for the Ages

Gin: The Manual by david broom mitchell beazley, 224 pages, $19.99 Britain’s two national drinks—beer and gin—have both undergone a revival in the last decade. Twenty years ago, if you drove through Kent, you would see them plowing up the hop fields. No one, it was thought, would ever want to . . . . Continue Reading »

All the East is Moving

For many years, German leaders had been struggling to cope with an influx of peoples across their borders. While the crisis was one that had afflicted much of Europe, it was Germany that bore the brunt. Year after year they had been coming, crossing from the steppes of the . . . . Continue Reading »

Leave Wins

Like most Americans, I paid little attention to the Brexit campaign. It seemed a foregone conclusion. The prediction markets were signaling that a vote to leave the E.U. was a long shot; the polls indicated that Remain was comfortably ahead; the stock markets were quiet. Besides, anti-E.U. protests . . . . Continue Reading »

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