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Eastern Europe: History Resumed

Eastern Europe in 1990 is not to be confused with Africa in 1960. African decolonization was a relatively peaceful affair. It was sponsored and financed by the former colonial powers, and the new regimes, with one or two exceptions, accepted either some semblance of democracy or a benevolent . . . . Continue Reading »

Timethink on the Rocks

Poor Time. Twenty-four years ago this month, the magazine brought us its Nietzschean fears with its famous red-on-black cover, “Is God Dead?” More recently, apparently, the agnostic editors of Time experienced a crisis of faith over the secular substitute for God, and thus presented the . . . . Continue Reading »

Should Politics Be Sacralized?

Twin Powers: Politics and the Sacred by thomas molnar eerdmans, 147 pages, $9.95 One of the most distinctive features of post-Enlightenment Western culture is its desacralization of the cosmos, the flip side of secularism. Not only has daily life been transformed by science—for example, we no . . . . Continue Reading »

Editorial: Redefining Abortion Politics

Beginning with the Supreme Court’s Webster decision of last July, Americans were delighted, distressed, or simply puzzled to discover that abortion was back in the political arena. It had been abruptly “removed from politics” by the Roe v. Wade decision of 1973, when it became a question . . . . Continue Reading »

Modernism & Its Consequences

Rites of Spring: The Great War and the Birth of the Modern Ageby modris ecksteinshoughton mifflin (a peter davison book), 396 pages, $24.95 Modris Eksteins’ disturbing and fascinating book ranges between the Sergei Diaghilev-managed opening night performance of Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring . . . . Continue Reading »

Poverty and Public Policy

In Pursuit: Of Happiness and Good Governmentby charles murraysimon and schuster, 341 pages, $19.95 In January of 1964 President Lyndon Johnson's Council of Economic Advisers helped launch the War on Poverty by including in its annual report a chapter on “The Problem of Poverty in America.” . . . . Continue Reading »

The Capitalism & Morality Debate

The decade of the 1980s has proved to be an ideological watershed. It has been marked by a huge resurgence of the power and efficacy of the capitalist market system and a corresponding collapse of confidence in the capacity of socialist “command economies.” This loss of confidence in . . . . Continue Reading »

The Return of the Catholic Whig

In his famous Postscript to The Constitution of Liberty, Friedrich von Hayek identified Thomas Aquinas as “the first Whig,” and has several times since noted how important it is to distinguish the Whig tradition from that of many exponents of the classical liberal tradition. Among . . . . Continue Reading »

March Letters

Setting the Agenda (Editors’ note: In order to inaugurate our correspondence section, we asked a number of people to respond briefly to the following question: “What are the most important issues in religion and public life that First Things should address, and what advice would you give us for . . . . Continue Reading »

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