For each of the past twenty-one years the Gallup Organization has conducted a nationwide poll on attitudes of the American public toward education. The latest results, like others in recent years, show an apparent contradiction between strong support for more parent choice among schools, and . . . . Continue Reading »
Reflecting on the rash of outraged protests against allegedly sexist, racist, and homophobic slurs erupting in our public life, New York Times columnist Anna Quindlen tries to get to the root of the matter. It all has to do with “consciousness,” or so it seems. Some offenses against approved . . . . Continue Reading »
Socialism: Past and Future by michael harringtonarcade publishing, 320 pages, $19.95 If one is going to be a socialist, Michael Harrington’s variety is perhaps the best kind to be. Before his premature death from cancer this past year, Harrington worked with Dorothy Day to help the poor in . . . . Continue Reading »
Japan: In the Land of the Brokenhearted by michael shapiro henry holt & company, 254 pages, $19.95 In recent years writing on Japan has become a veritable cottage industry. In the slew of literature promising to reveal and explain the secrets of that mysterious “and economically . . . . Continue Reading »
Revolt against Destiny: An Intellectual History of the United States by paul a. carter columbia university press, 331 pages, $24.95 The only thing really wrong about this thought-provoking book is its subtitle. Whatever else it may be —and it is actually several fine things — it is not . . . . Continue Reading »
Trust and Obedience First Things has done me the favor of asking Professor Gilbert Meilaender to review my book, The Giving and Taking of Life: Essays Ethical (April). May I dialogue briefly with some of his remarks? He attends, in the first place, to my central argument: that the moral import of . . . . Continue Reading »
At the last rock of the last ledge of the last climb, retreat blocked, he went to the edge to look over his days and ways. The earth lay below in colors. He watched it with desire, but it was spread out far far below, and was unobtainable. At his foot was a green thing—a leaf, slick and . . . . Continue Reading »
The drumbeat for apocalypse can once again be heard in the media. Almost two decades after the publication of The Limits to Growth, the Club of Rome scenario that predicted ecological catastrophe, the WorldWatch Institute has picked up the mantle of leadership in the discredited field of what I . . . . Continue Reading »
Ordinary Time by a. g. mojtabai doubleday, 223 pages, $17.95 A.G. Mojtabai’s nonfiction work, Blessed Assurance, won the 1986 Lillian Smith Award for the best book about the American South. Now, in her fifth novel, Ordinary Time, in prose as clean and spare as the landscape which is its setting, . . . . Continue Reading »
Liberal Arts and Community: The Feeding of the Larger Body by marion montgomery louisiana state university press, 170 pages, $27.50 Graceful and erudite essays aimed at recovering the liberal arts for the sustaining of community that is formed by an understanding of the good. As for subjects . . . . Continue Reading »
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