| Advertise on ALDaily | Thursday, July 2, 2009 | VERITAS ODIT MORAS |
Breaking News
Newspapers
Nota Bene
Magazines
Book Reviews
Columnists
Favorites
Weblogs
Radio News
Radio Music
Diversions
Classics Refdesk Arts Journal SciTech Daily Dictionary/Thesaurus CEO Express Yahoo  |
 |
Articles of NoteMany believe that China will follow the models of Korea and Taiwan and become an economic giant. Don’t be too sure... more» J.G. Ballard’s experience of Shanghai was, he said, closer to the normal lives of the majority of people in the 20th century than most realize... more» Language pervades the deepest domains of thought, shaping us from the nuts and bolts of perception to our loftiest abstract notions and major life decisions... more» Bars and cafes in France have fallen from 200,000 fifty years ago to 38,600 today. Blame smoking bans and the economy, but also le sandwich... more» How might a Darwinian explain spite? An affronted sense of fairness? Envy? Lust for revenge? Perhaps even pure sadism?... more» Auto repair as a skilled manual labor is far more cognitive than most people realize, Matthew Crawford says. And it’s one thing that can’t be outsourced to China... more» Placebo effects: capsules work better than tablets, big pills work better than small, and the more expensive the medicine, the more its effect... more» Bill Buckley could turn any event into an adventure, a joke, a showdown. He loved risk. He was just an exciting person to be around... more» Party animals. Human creativity thrived in prehistoric life where our ancestors were crowded into small spaces, mingling and talking... more» Some systems – financial, transport, power grids, taxation – are just too big to carry on with any degree of predictability. They become unstable before we can know... more» Michael Jackson has gone from boy wonder to circus freak over 40 years, with stints as “king of pop,” messiah figure, and public enemy... more» One of prehistory’s great mysteries is, what happened to the Neanderthals? Here’s an answer: we ate them... more» Newsweekly’s last stand. Yes, the news magazines are in trouble in a digital age – all except The Economist. So why is it thriving?... more» For Europeans, it will be a lot harder to stop immigration from Muslim lands than it was to initiate immigration flows in the first place... more» The Dreamliner is a sleek and elegant plane. It is also two years behind schedule and a potential disaster for Boeing... more» Can dogs talk? Kind of, says the latest scientific research. But they tend to have very poor pronunciation... more» Herbert Hoover assumed office in 1928 with strong skills, genuine confidence, and what seemed a healthy economy. Then in 1929... more» The failure of economists to predict the current crisis lies partly in their overall unwillingness to take into account liquidity risks... more» Suppose Israel blows up Iran’s nuclear reactor, to make sure the mullahs do not get a bomb. What will the angry Iranians do?... more» “One day, I’ll write a really nerdy book.” But until then, Malcolm Gladwell will continue to be the rock star of nonfiction... more» Do great cooks memorize countless recipes? No. They have a grasp of basic ingredients and the ratios of ingredients that make great food... more» Democracy needs to know the serious reading of books. Long books. Hard books. Books with which we have to struggle... more» J.D. Salinger is in court, suing for the “recall and destruction” of a novel that had been set to be published this fall... more» Any skill that represents nature can be turned into a form of virtuoso expression: consider the art of creating decoy ducks... more» Did lethal warfare have any use in human prehistory beyond conquest? A new theory claims it drove the evolution of altruism... more» Freeman Dyson views being a skeptic about man-made global warming as a job. He does not want to do it himself, but until someone else shows up... more» Seriously now, lard is good for you. After years in the shadow of cholesterol worries, it turns out that lard is not as unhealthy as you thought... more» Conspicuous environmentalism: you want your electric car to be a source of green prestige, of course. But it must not look cheap and tinny... more» In China, dealings with officials range from extreme flexibility to extreme rigidity, with little in between. Which was it going to be?... more» Can the world survive China’s headlong rush to emulate the American way of life? The signs are not looking good... more» Describe the world as an ordinary person sees it, George Orwell advised. “Take things seriously. And tell the truth. Tell the truth”... more» “An evolving system of paranoia,” is an apt way to describe the UFO movement. So now that Roswell is dead and gone, what’s next?... more» Art Tatum played millions of notes in his short life, yet every one of them is precious. Laws of supply and demand do not apply... more» The U.S. is the most modern and one of the most religious countries in the world. It shows the rest of the world how religion can be kept separate from the state... more» Germany, land of Goethe, Schiller, Bach, Rilke, and Beethoven, has an unlikely pop culture hero: Donald Duck... more» From mice to primates, animals are ruled by codes of moral conduct that are related to the codes and emotions of human beings... more» The atonement Milan Kundera’s critics have demanded of him seems strangely to act out dramatic scenes from his novels... more» The cowboy and cactus art hanging in the White House is coming down. Going up in its place: Richard Diebenkorn, Ed Ruscha, and Franz Kline... more» Holocaust helpers. To run his war against the Jews, Hitler needed assistance from all over Europe. No problem: he had volunteers aplenty... more» George Orwell, desperately sick, fighting demons of his imagination in a bleak Scottish outpost after the war, was trying to finish a novel... more» In defense of distraction: Twitter, Adderall, lifehacking, mindful jogging, YouTube, Facebook, endless email, and the subtle benefits of overstimulation... more» In a story, the writer commands every aspect of the world the reader inhabits. Fine: it’s worked for centuries. But in a video game... more» How did Arthur Conan Doyle, medical man steeped in science and creator of a super-rational detective, fall for so much mumbo jumbo?... more» The exciting new Honda hybrid: a car so Biblically terrible that auto journalist Jeremy Clarkson considered driving it into a tree on purpose... more» The human heart remains as much of a mystery as the sex organs once used to be. Just consider the personal love lives of Masters and Johnson... more» A philosopher once asked, “What’s it like to be a bat?” – now a staple of Phil 101 courses. But how about: “What’s it like to be a baby?”... more» Natural selection is the greatest idea ever to occur to a human mind, says Richard Dawkins. Hence his anger at anyone who hides its truth from young people... more» Even though they were Swiss-cheesed by a blizzard of bullets 75 years ago, Bonnie and Clyde are still going strong... more» Everyone likes to talk about how young families are revitalizing big cities. The truth of migration patterns tells another story, as Joel Kotkin explains... more» Bring back ROTC. Values that a military education can cultivate go far beyond war-making. They might find a place in universities today... more» Pakistan’s anti-Indianism does not mean Talibanism, with locking up women, slicing of hands, and so forth. But still, Islamism... more» Isabel Paterson is a name that does not mean much to Ayn Rand fans. But this is the woman who most inspired the author of Atlas Shrugged... more» The end of East Germany was ushered in by massive protests across the land. But opposition to communist rule had started with a whisper... more» Obsessive Housing Disorder. Nearly a century of Washington’s efforts to promote home ownership has produced one calamity after another... more» With jobs, income, and credit in a death spiral, the model of capitalism that dominates the global economy must be radically reformed... more» Van Gogh did not slice off his ear with a razor in an act of self-mutilation. His friend Gauguin accidentally cut it off with a sword... more» Einstein, Salvador Dali, Tony Hancock, and Beach Boy Brian Wilson have little in common, except creative genius. And maybe psychosis... more» “Every time you perform a magic trick, you are doing experimental psychology,” says Teller. If in the end the audience is baffled, the experiment worked... more» Green ethnic cleansing: to expel aboriginal persons from their homelands to create commodified “wilderness” is a charade... more» I.F. Stone, a man known for speaking truth to power, was not only a defender but an agent of the Soviet Union during Stalin’s purges, 1936–38... more» Icelanders have gone through hard times of late, which affects how they perceive themselves. But that is based too on how others perceive Icelanders... more» “Capitalism is nothing but a false religion, with Mammon as its god and Adam Smith as its high priest.” How true is this claim?... more» Post-Google, plagiarism is a different art: add little observations that differ from the original. Reorder paragraphs, with new quotes, spurious or ad hoc... more» “It would be naive to say that Iraq’s future is certain to be a peaceful one,” says Nir Rosen, “but the war between Sunnis and Shiites is now over”... more» In James Agee’s troubled journey from Tennessee to Harvard to New York to Alabama, he always asked too much from the world, and from himself... more» Jared Diamond is sued for $10 million by two New Guineans over a New Yorker piece on revenge culture in PNG – with plaintiffs helped by Stephen Jay Gould’s widow... more» ... more» J.G. Ballard, who expanded and defied the genre of science fiction, is dead at the age of 78... NYT ... James Fallows ... Peter Stothard ... New Yorker ... Spiked ... Telegraph ... Toby Litt ... Michael Moorcock ... Guardian ... Martin Amis ... Independent ... John Crace ... London Times ... more links ... His last short story. People and ideas influence events, but geography largely determines them. Time to dust off the Victorian thinkers who knew the physical world best... more» Lord Nelson’s mistress, Lady Emma Hamilton, once sang Haydn’s ode to Nelson’s victory – with Haydn himself at the piano... more» Hugo Chavez’s gift to President Obama at the summit was Eduardo Galeano’s Open Veins of Latin America. The book is in fact a perfect idiot’s bible... more» His website looks like it always did, but in his personal life, Matt Drudge is behaving more and more like the reclusive Howard Hughes... more» You love Poe or you don’t, but, either way, Poe doesn’t love you. A writer who was more condescending to his adoring readers would be hard to find... more» Knowing East Germany would soon fade into memory, West German photo journalist Karlheinz Jardner set out for points east in 1990... more» ... photo gallery When Shakespeare died he left neither books nor letters nor notes. This strikes Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens as more than a little odd... more» Jill Price’s memory is extraordinary, to be sure, but it is not about just anything. It is about anything having to do with her... more» Autism has 111 recognized treatments. Familes will try many of these. None of them works, though all seem to – for a while... more» Jane Austen managed to tickle a sweet spot in the modern mind in a way that shows we are not so far removed from early Homo sapiens... more» Sir John Maddox, skeptical prophet who enlivened Nature, is dead at the age of 83... more» ... His predictions look pretty good ... Edge interview Just as Montaigne pioneered the modern essay form, Andrew Sullivan’s pithy, personal style is creating the modern blog... more» Both Picasso and Apollinaire were prime suspects when Leonardo’s Mona Lisa was stolen from the Louvre in 1911... more» Most overrated woman writer? Gertrude Stein, says Elaine Showalter: a sanctified “sister,” perhaps, but still unreadable. Most underrated?... more» They might turn out to be subhuman in intellectual and emotional powers. But if we clone Neanderthals, they will have legal rights... more» Humans evolved as distance runners who can overtake exhausted game. That’s why you have those stubby toes... more» From escape, to language, to history, to local lit: here are eight kinds of books Frank Bures won’t travel without... more» Music recitals, Glenn Gould predicted, would fade away, replaced by an individual interaction between listener and recorded artist. A good idea, he thought... more» Biblical characters are opaque to us, James Wood argues, precisely because they are transparent to God, who is their real audience. Perhaps... more» Russia’s Depopulation Bomb. Vodka is an important tool in what now amounts to a practice of ethnic self-cleansing... more» What was that world leader doing shaking hands with the cop who stands by the door at 10 Downing Street? At least Gordon Brown knows a cop’s place... more» John Hope Franklin: a model for scholars, students, and activists, a man of immense generosity to friends and of prudent counsel to the powerful... more» The little white lie that grew. Judge Marcus Einfeld got a speeding ticket, told a fib, and, as Clive James explains, dug himself in deeper... more» George Frideric Handel, musical genius, was also a binge eater and boozer whose gargantuan appetites brought on lead poisoning... more» Biofuels are the worst enemy of the world’s rainforests and of the people who depend on them. Heather Rogers explains... more» The most important clash in Israel’s brief history took place in 1948, when Israelis battled Arab militias in towns and villages of Palestine... more» “We’re constantly told that we can’t do anything: we’re poor, dirty, hungry, corrupt, diseased. And we’re supposed to build a better Africa?”... more» How odd: just handling cash can take the sting out of social rejection and even diminish physical pain. Money is such strange stuff... more» At midnight on March 6, 1835, a hysterical J.S. Mill knocked at Thomas Carlyle’s door: a servant had by mistake burned the ms. of Carlyle’s book... more» The snub of the century. It was T.S. Eliot himself who rejected George Orwell’s Animal Farm for publication by Faber and Faber... more» Friedrich Engels was born into the coal fumes of the Ruhr, heart of the industrial revolution, where the rich lived next to human misery... more» Col. Percy Fawcett was convinced by research, deduction, and clairvoyance that an undiscovered city lay hidden in the Amazon. So he tried to find it... more» Science fiction used to be more overtly political. Now, says Benjamin Plotinsky, it tends increasingly to employ Christian allegory... more» Capitalism may not be finished, but it is set to become a servant of the people rather than a master. The current slump will accelerate this change... more» Afghanistan’s Ariana was once viewed by travel experts as among the finest airlines in the world. Mohammed Atash was the man to bring it back... more» What would it be like to be brought up by George Orwell? Pretty grim, you might think. You would be wrong... more» If we continue to go on in the same way, our future is unsustainable. Of course, we never go on in the same way. Matt Ridley knows... more» A cloud of clichés and fallacies obscure Henry VIII. His grandeur and arrogance may render him attractive. But he was a serial killer... more» Marx was wrong. The opiate of the masses isn’t religion, but spectator sports, says David Barash. It’s in our genes.... more» Did Charles Dickens’s money-making tour of America kill him? No, but it added a new dimension to his immortality... more» Is it Shakespeare? Maybe, but not likely. The so-called Cobbe portrait is a splendid painting, but probably depicts Sir Thomas Overbury... more» American firms outsource work they used to do themselves. Why can’t American college students outsource their essays or dissertations?... more» Roland Barthes proclaimed the death of the author. So where would he stand on the publication of his private journals – long after his own death?... more» Art Spiegelman loves chicken fat, was once banned from Robert Crumb’s house, and hates the term “graphic novel”... more» Setting goals can be useful, so long as you know what the right goals are. But as Drake Bennet points out, life is so damned complicated... more» Was Einstein wrong? Quantum effects not only go against deep intuitions about the world, they undermine special relativity... more» A tale of sadness and forgetting. It may be hard to believe, but Milan Kundera informed on one of his countrymen in 1950. The man got 14 years hard labor... more» China may sustain growth for another two decades and vindicate the optimists. But there are strong odds that China’s growth will fizzle... more» For all the wonders of our global era, Jews, Muslims, and Christians seem ever more locked in mortal combat. But maybe this story can have a happy ending... more» Blow the powder away and look at the evidence: Harvard MBA fingerprints are all over recent financial fiascos. Philip Broughton knows... more» The American Dream has not gone sour, says David Kamp: it can still give citizens a decent chance to scale the walls and achieve what they wish... more» Shoes were important, but during WWII, Adidas also made the German version of the bazooka. The company was not alone in aiding the war effort... more» Newspapers have not really so much lost readers as lost the ability to monetize them. There is hope yet, as James DeLong explains... more» Just what the world needs least: wise and gifted child chefs who, with the help of their narcissistic moms and dads, will lead us to the culinary uplands... more» Have that drink, girls. It may well be that the “take-home message” from an Oxford survey on booze and cancer is that such studies can be intellectual garbage... more» Is religion innate? Would children raised in isolation spontaneously create their own religious beliefs? Paul Bloom says yes.... more» What are the most ancient words still in our vocabulary? Some of the words we use every day derive from a prehistoric tongue we might call “Ice Age”... more» Road novels, stories, and gangster films of the 1930s depicted American social mobility as a bitter cheat. We may now relive 1930s art... more» Sick of getting wound up playing Grand Theft Auto? Then try Flower, a video game where you can, uh, hang out with flowers, and stuff... more» Conrad Black has served a year of his six-year sentence. In an email interview, he describes his life in a Florida prison... more» “Natural selection” and “survival of the fittest.” Two phrases that have misled many about the true nature of evolution... more» |
|
New BooksHarvard president Charles W. Eliot saw his Five-Foot Shelf as “a good substitute for a liberal education.” Maybe it still is... more» Ought victimhood to be passed down to future generations? How about a moral statute of limitations on historic wrongs?... more» God has mellowed. Sure, he gets sore about abortion and gay marriage, but he’s really nothing like the Yahweh of the Hebrew Bible... more» If Anna Letitia Barbauld’s was a voice of the Enlightenment, it has not carried very far. A new biography may change that... more» East, West, sex: are European men really “drawn to the slim, small-boned, black-haired women of Asia, more plumlike than melonlike of breast”?... more»
Skip Griffin was a self-educated staff sergeant in the U.S. Army, a young man widely read in philosophy and theology. After he died in Iraq... more» In democracy, soft despotism “does not break wills,” says Tocqueville, “ it softens them, bends them, and directs them”... more» Leon Trotsky was absolutely committed to creating a workers’ paradise at all costs. But he was too inspirational, too popular... more» Saint-Simon’s memoirs do not make us regret the end of the age of great kings. But if only we had today chroniclers as wise, vital, witty, and knowing... more» Isaac Rosenfeld was once the golden boy of American letters. Then something happened. Or maybe something didn’t happen... more» “If the Mafia boss thinks you might betray him, he will just kill you or throw you into prison.” That is not how the government of China should behave... more» Numbers exist without us: four dinosaurs stand together in a prehistoric clearing. They number four even if no people are there to count them. Unless... more» Boring labor is a threat to one’s humanity. It follows therefore that interesting labor can be a form of redemption. Like fixing motorcycles... more» Isaiah Berlin disliked nature, linking love of the land with reactionary romanticism. People were his landscape... more» Susan Jacoby wants to slap faces, and shake hands, on both left and right in the Alger Hiss case. But it’s hard for her to have it every which way... more» “It is not Che’s high cheekbones, long eyelashes and cool bomber jacket that make this photo desirable. Its appeal also lies in its spirituality”... more» For prophetic visions of the future, some people turn to horoscopes. But if you want to know what the future holds, better to ask a scientist... more» Marketing is now “the most dominant force in human culture,” claims Darwinian psychologist Geoffrey Miller. Is this mere hyperbole? Maybe not... more» Gustave Flaubert could scarcely contain himself writing about a young prostitute he had in Cairo. He was part of a tradition... more» Elia Kazan made himself into a character in 1950s America as vivid and as desperate to be loved as Norman Mailer, Sugar Ray Robinson, or Lucille Ball... more» Albert might marry Victoria, but he was not to run the household. He was only allowed to bring from Germany his valet, his librarian, and his greyhound... more» The likes of neither Victor Navasky nor Ann Coulter owns the truth about spying against the U.S. in the Cold War. Time to let facts alone speak... more» In war-time France, the authorities, both Vichy and Nazi, encouraged the arts, each for their own reasons. It was an oddly vibrant period... more» Real knowledge can come from struggles to master the brute reality of material objects: say, loosening a bolt without stripping its threads... more» It was a great moment in evolution and it changed our bodies and our minds forever: Drop food in fire, then eat it... more» Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin both came to believe in a world without a present God but still with providential purposes... more» How much richer is your existence since you got that high-speed router? How much better off is the life of the mind in the internet age?... more» George Scialabba’s conjunction of hope with despair, his indecision about utopia, and his resistance to frivolity: all make him a most attractive critic... more» John Gray’s articles and essays over the past 30 years leave you poised, noose in hand, to contemplate the wretchedness of human existence... more» Economists are mostly rather unsociable creatures. They tend to seek their own advantage, and naturally expect others to do the same... more» The young John Rawls conceived of man as not entirely of the natural world, having a soul that allows him to transcend nature... more» Samuel Johnson was both a savage who disturbed polite 18th-century drawing rooms – and a man of the most civilized learning, intelligence, and wit... more» How did George Eliot come to have such a profound imaginative sympathy for the Jews she shows in Daniel Deronda?... more» Flannery O’Connor went to Lourdes and prayed, but not for health: “I prayed there for the novel I was working on”... more» The 1970s was a grim time for Britain, a time of decline and despair, a dead end. When at last something happened, its name was Margaret Thatcher... more» Vodka was invented in Russia by medieval monks, but it has had a most unholy effect on the Russian people... more» Philosopher E.M. Cioran is all about despair, ecstasy, boredom, insanity, suicide, crime, illness, nothingness – and puncturing our bloated pieties... more» Bernstein on the podium: “fencing, hula-dancing, and calling on the heavens to witness his agonies.” Then there was his politics... more» Sergey Prokofiev survived Stalin’s terror, comforted by his devout belief in Christian Science. He had discovered the teachings of Mary Baker Eddy in 1924... more» The idea that religion is destined to die out is itself a confession of faith. No evidence will persuade secular believers they are on the wrong side of history... more» It’s a standard genre: a book written by a big thinker who wants to capture the spirit of America while armed only with his own brilliance. David Brooks explains... more» The Kindly Ones leads the stunned reader on a journey through some of the darkest recesses of European history... more» ... more» Enlightenment liberals opposed slavery, and Christian abolitionists as well. So where did Abraham Lincoln fit into this picture?... more» Even though more stuff does not lead to more happiness, human beings are driven to acquire, acquire, acquire. Geoffrey Miller can see why... more» Matthew Crawford finished his Ph.D in political philosophy, went to work for a think tank, and then decided to quit – and start repairing motorcycles... more» Richard Posner does not want just to guide us amiably through the thicket of the financial crisis. His real joy is setting off grenades in the underbrush... more» Elaine Showalter argues women’s writing has moved from “feminine” to “feminist” to “female” to a final stage: “free”... more» It was never simple for Grace: “nothing is simple if your mind is a fetch-and-carry wanderer from sliced perilous outer world to secret safe inner world”... more» Fiction insists on a split between a body of words and a real world that includes the maybe vile, or maybe virtuous, author. Think of Flannery O’Connor... more» Madame de Staël’s life, for all its money, privilege, and Romantic eccentricity, had deep tragic elements of frustration and brooding loss... more» The Chinese poets may address us more intimately today when they speak of suffering and disillusionment, rather than beauty and perfection... more» Republican Rome was not obsessed solely with wealth and the dignity of the elite. Some voices still spoke for the rights of the common people... more» In A Moveable Feast, Ernest Hemingway saw a vibrant Paris. Today, we view with nostalgia a Left Bank that is a banal tourist enclave... more» Who cares if he’s straight or gay? It’s hard not to become completely enthralled by Tintin’s fast-paced adventures... more» “Parents have no lasting influence on their children’s personalities or on the way they behave outside the home.” Judith Rich Harris’s thesis still shocks... more» Whether narrator, or as professor, dwarf, badger, or lion, C.S. Lewis himself is always a sane and playful presence in Narnia... more» Charles Darwin did not invent the idea of evolution, or even the idea that a process of evolution had occurred in the history of life... more» Amis, Osborne, Larkin, and Tynan. Blokes with no time for social disciplines: self-assertion and pleasure were what they were after... more» James Lovelock’s Gaia, a.k.a. Mother Earth, has her ways, her reasons, and an odd, emergent intelligence. She also has interests... more» Who gets to change the rules of English usage? We all do, says Patricia O’Conner. When enough of us decide that “cool” means “hot,” change happens... more» From Zeus to Seuss, from Homeric epics to that kindly Horton who heard the Who, we all love the plots, emotions, pleasures, and human insights of literature... more» Born today, the James family would have been a typical Prozac-loving, depressed, bipolar, narcissistic, fame-seeking bunch. Or maybe not... more» Nostalgia can mean a melancholic flight from life. With Constantine Cavafy it turns into an element of cultural health and creative drive... more» Truth matters, but the best way to get at truth is to allow an open contest of ideas. That’s why we need freedom of speech... more» The animated Jean-Jacques Rousseau with his Armenian caftan. The portly, amiable David Hume. They must have made a very odd couple... more» Chiang Kai-Shek was despised, not just by the Communist Chinese, but by many Americans. Yet he may not deserve his reputation as a brutal despot... more» Why don’t students like school? Because school requires them to think abstractly – not something our brains are designed to enjoy... more» Garish, tasteless, sentimental: kitsch gives us fake human feeling wrapped in a thick layer of cuteness. But so what, if people enjoy it?... more» Friedrich Engels was a scion of 19th-century Manchester cottonocracy, yet hoped for the British economy’s collapse... more» Seedy, desperate men and women: traitors, unhappy adulterous lovers, murderers. No one has ever wanted to be a Graham Greene character... more» Franz Kafka lived out his humdrum life in Prague. As he said, “Prague doesn’t let go. The old crone has claws. One has to yield”... more» The boxing, the Burgundy, the ease in talking to privates and generals alike, the friendships with Camus or cigar-store bookies: A.J. Liebling was a wordly man... more» Universities in trouble. The collapse last year of institutional investments has been spectacular, with higher education hit hard... more» Liberalism has always rightly stood for a broad prosperity and solidarity that pits itself against exploitation. It has always, that is, been proto-socialist... more» Helen Gurley Brown was a poor hillbilly from the Ozarks whose father died when she was ten and whose sister had polio. But from that start... more» Art entertains, inspires, and goads. But it also deepens our grasp of the human condition by taking us into the minds of others... more» ... more» ... more» However loudly the grammar mavens may protest, says Ben Yagoda, an English speaker can expect to see new words impact their language... more» Even D.A. Powell’s flawed poems are better than hundreds of unflawed poems that live for a day like mayflies, then die on the page from dullness... more» What distinguishes friendship between two people from friendship between a human and an animal? Is “friendship” even the right word with animals?... more» “Rich, artistic, brilliant, oversexed (or undersexed), neurotic, and ultimately tragic.” Yeah, it’s that brooding Wittgenstein family again... more» Black is brilliant, and Alain Locke, one of the great intellectuals of any color, a man of aesthetic sensibility and philosophical depth, proved it... more» Refrigeration changed our attitude toward food by removing the site of production from the sight of consumers. Thus did our idea of “freshness” emerge... more» “We’ve burned our bridges,” Goebbels said in 1943. “We will either go down in history as the greatest statesmen of all time, or the greatest criminals”... more» In 1797, Thomas Cadell made perhaps the greatest mistake in publishing history. One Rev. George Austen had sent him a novel by his daughter... more» It was the young Benjamin Disraeli who coined the word millionaire in 1827 for the burgeoning class that had created the Industrial Revolution... more» The historical battle for women is to be visible, to be accorded full humanity, not as transient organisms, nor as animals created for male use... more» As we drift toward a world where the press is made up of small players, don’t forget: we may come to miss the media dinosaurs who once roamed the earth... more» Radical Islam does not revert to an ancient world-view. Would that it did. The Islam of Khomeini or Al-Qaeda is in truth quite modern... more» Marie Antoinette dancing, Napoleon making small talk, trading with the Iroquois – Lucie Dillon’s journal has it all... more» “A review cannot convey how deeply unpleasant the experience of reading The Kindly Ones is. This is one of the most repugnant books I have ever read”... more» Is the snarky Maureen Dowd a witty political satirist, or a sexist political scientist? Not a hard question, except maybe to David Denby... more» Did Gerard Manley Hopkins’s being a priest damage his capacity to be a poet? Was he gay? Biographers need to ask, if not answer, such questions... more» “Whoever beats a good woman, and then abandons her, should be in great trouble – or worse!” The Song of the Cid still has appeal... more» Marian Anderson at the Lincoln Memorial in 1939 was a symbol of great art, resolute courage, and human dignity... more» India is a place, Wendy Doniger writes, “where not only the future but even the past is unpredictable.” Just look at the history of Hinduism... more» Hitler loved high society: he wanted to be seen with bluebloods and celebrities of film, music, art, theatre, and sports... more» The Oedipuses were a talented but, well, you know, not exactly happy family. Maybe a little bit like that Wittgenstein clan... more» Top economists, ordinary people, and even Ben Bernanke were wrong to ignore the housing bubble. But were they being irrational?... more» Nature vs. nurture? Forget it. Nature works with nurture, and nurture with nature, to shape our aptitudes, our health, our very lives... more» Rummaging through some trash, he fished out a bowler hat, a cane, overlarge boots and pants, and a tiny jacket. Charlie Chaplin was born... more» The experience of beauty ought to tell us we are at home in the world, argues Roger Scruton, that it is a place fit for the lives of beings like us... more» The words of godlike Agamemnon need clear, direct translation into English. Yet would he say, “I’ll be okay”?... more» Kamila Stosslova, though not caring much for Leos Janácek’s music, turns out to have been his ideal muse: an empty canvas for his fantasies... more» One way to see French history: a long 19th century bookended by slaughter. But what a 19th century it was... more» Ought a judge to allow two years to pass before dismissing a $54 million damage claim for a missing pair of trousers? Some people think, no... more» It is easy to forget how close we remain to the prehistoric men and women who first found beauty in the world. Our art instinct is theirs... more» Lafcadio Hearn had a rare gift for bringing a place to bustling, scented, gorgeously tinted life: a thunderstorm over New Orleans, for instance... more» By the age of 34, Talleyrand had become a worldly, womanizing bishop. With the end of the ancien régime, he adjusted to new realities. And how... more» Behind the carefully constructed persona of suburban squire, John Cheever waged a tumultuous battle against himself... more» While friends lived it up, young Warren Buffett scoured stock listings for “cigar butts,” discarded stocks that still had a few puffs left in them... more» Experimental science can involve nudging complicated equipment. Still, the most temperamental piece of lab equipment will always be the human brain... more» After midnight on 18 March 1990, two men posing as police entered the Gardner Museum in Boston. It was a heist... more» The Revolution of 1848 actually made politics less flexible, consolidating state power. Continuity, it showed, works better than revolution... more» Stalin would kill not just you for the wrong thoughts: he would kill your family, down to the last child. Not even the Czar at his worst did that... more» William Julius Wilson on race: neither blaming the victim nor defending the victim is going to move us forward... more» Paul Valéry: the most distinguished, versatile, and best-connected mind of his time, the ultimate French intellectual... more» C. Wright Mills decried the “cheerful robots” he saw in cold war culture, along with an American fusion of welfare and warfare... more» Ellen Terry “moved through the world of the theatre like embodied sunshine.” Henry Irving was electrifying on stage... more» Abraham Lincoln has been long enshrined as a complex legend, a fate sealed by the martyrdom that gave him to the ages, or the angels... more» With the death in 1944 of his first wife, Bella, whose love fostered Marc Chagall’s creativity, he became another one of art’s egotistical monsters... more» | |
Essays and OpinionPresident Obama echoes gloomy think tank reports in calling cyber-security “one of the most serious economic and national security challenges we face.” Is this true?... more» Conspiracy theories remain the pastime of crank groups. But conspiratorial thinking, the idea that someone out there is to blame for every misfortune, has become respectable... more» Woman power. Regimes that repress the civil and human rights of half their populations are inherently unstable. Anne Applebaum explains... more» The Dalai Lama wants “one country, two systems” for Tibet. Tibetans would be happy with one system – the relatively liberal one found elsewhere in China... more» Gen. Patrick Hurley, President Roosevelt’s man in Tehran, was a rambunctious chap who liked cowboy hats. He also had a dream: democracy for Iran... more» A spectre is haunting the world, Karl Marx might write today: the spectre of neoliberalism. Where did this idea come from, and why is it so awful?... more» In the aftermath of modernism, artistic beauty has more and more aimed to disturb or subvert moral certainties. Originality, not beauty, now wins prizes... more» The notion of multiple intelligences is uplifting and politically satisfying. Unfortunately, the actual evidence suggests it’s wrong... more» “The Jagger lips, moody monobrow, and fag between two fingers exactly fitted the image I’d formed of a coldly alluring Martin Amis.” Julie Kavanagh was smitten... more» Greed is good, up to a point. We must get straight on what capitalism offers the world, and know what its limits are. This means better knowing ourselves, says Fareed Zakaria... more» Francis Bacon’s reputation as a romantic outlaw has allowed him to achieve the most over-inflated reputation of the last half-century, says Jed Perl... more» Most Russians would like to see more democracy in Russia, including a rule of law and a freer media. But the West tends to misinterpret this longing, says Anatol Lieven... more» Robert Garmong struggled through grad-school poverty and then life on the adjunct market. But he never thought he’d go to prison just to teach philosophy... more» Garrett Hardin was wrong to say, “the inherent logic of the commons remorselessly generates tragedy.” Actually, it ends up generating private property. Ronald Bailey explains... more» Said Groucho Marx to the talkative bore, “You must have been vaccinated with a phonograph needle.” Mark Edmundson too has met his share of bores... more» A narrow Darwinian view will never be able to account for religion’s indispensable role in forming higher ideals that, as a species, help to make us genuinely civilized... more» Bitterness is so common and so deeply harmful that some psychiatrists are urging it be identified as a mental illness: “post-traumatic embitterment disorder”... more» Lochner’s Home Bakery in Utica was owned by hard-working German immigrant Joseph Lochner. In 1895, he found himself in violation of the New York Bakeshop Act... more» They can be eccentric, slow afoot, even grouchy. But old dogs can live out their final days with a humility and grace we all can learn from... more» Conspiracies have in principle the power to do actual harm in the world. Far more harmful in practice is the power of conspiracy theories... more» Is the American embargo against Cuba the “dumbest policy on the face of the earth”? Maybe not. But that does not mean it is working... more» Four ways to experience Little Dorrit: paperback, audiobook, Kindle, and iPhone. Which works best for Dickens? Ann Kirschner decided to run a little experiment... more» What’s going on? Much of Europe falls into the hands of conservative parties, while America has “gone socialist.” In truth, differences between Europe and the U.S. are overrated... more» The real purpose of universities is not to flatter the tastes of those who arrive there, but to present them with a rite of passage into something better... more» Thomas Paine both inspired and witnessed two revolutions: the one that gave birth to the United States and the one that destroyed the French monarchy... more» The handyman had been a copy editor, fixing people’s broken sentences. Now his business was to fix their broken heaters and garbage disposers... more» The dot-com bubble burst by 2000. Then it was housing, which triggered the credit meltdown, followed by stocks. Will higher education be the next bubble to burst?... more» Richard Wagner viewed himself as an underdog. That’s why, after Mendelssohn’s early death in 1847, he wreaked revenge on the “little Jewish prince”... more» Is the spirit of Tiananmen dead? No, says Wuer Kaixi. In fact, everything that is happening in politics and economics in China today has some connection with Tiananmen... more» How did we get here? Next to the poster on the school notice board advising 12-year-olds on safe sex is an edict that smoking is a sin. As for binge drinking... more» Detroit’s magic was killed by bureaucrats, bad taste, and busybodies. P.J. O’Rourke explains why Americans fell out of love with the automobile... more» Nostalgianomics: “The America I grew up in was a relatively equal middle-class society,” says Paul Krugman, wiping a tear away. Oh? What was his Golden Age really like?... more» Elizabeth Bishop caught fish, but also created them on the page: fish that lay there dying. You can get a “glimpse of the rose-colored sheaf of gills, crisp and bloody”... more» How many died in the slaughter at Tiananmen Square? 200? 3000? We may never know. We only know Chinese intellectual life was altered forever... more» ... more» Where are the leaders of ’89? Before Duncan Laki could find the men who murdered his father, he had to confront Uganda’s desire to keep its bloody past safely buried... more» The mind is not the brain. To confuse the two, which is what neuroscience does all the time, leads to a world bereft of meaning, morality, dignity, and freedom... more» “Keynes did for economics what Nietzsche did for morals: he stripped away illusions and pretenses that shielded traditional belief.” Partly true, but... more» The natural life of a TV series, like the history of a nation or an art movement, falls into four periods, says Robert Fulford: primitive, classic, baroque, and decadent... more» Jan Fleischhauer was forbidden to eat oranges as a child. Proper left-wing German families knew oranges grew in lands ruled by dictators. As for eating at McDonald’s? Mein Gott!... more» The Bloomsbury group, a mix of young writers, thinkers, and artists, stood at the vanguard of a shift in manners away from 19th-century formality toward candor and playfulness... more» In China, history is a political tool as in no other land. You should remember Mao, but not the Great Famine he caused. Tiananmen Square? That’s a place in Beijing, isn’t it?... more» Kathy Ireland, star of the National Multicultural Business Conference, has made fitness videos and written books like Real Solutions for Busy Moms (first solution: hire a ghostwriter)... more» Charming, eccentric, cosmopolitan, and utterly fatalistic, Albert Jay Nock retains a capacity to fascinate political thinkers on both left and right... more» Torture is nothing new on the American scene, seen only in the exceptional circumstances of Guantanamo. In truth, it is as old as the Republic, says Noam Chomsky... more» With one eye on the Dow and the other on the empty stretches of Bergdorf’s main floor, the fashion industry is feeling its way into what it already calls a depression... more» The idea of a “fairy tale.” It is as thorny and hard to penetrate, says Jennifer Howard, as the hedge that surrounds the enchanted princess’s castle in Sleeping Beauty... more» After the Germans rolled over France’s defenses in 1940, how brave were French writers in resisting the Nazis? Ah, it was a complex, sadly mixed affair... more» Leonid Khrushchev died a war hero in 1943, 13 years before his father, Nikita, denounced Stalin. Now Russians are being told he was a traitor... more» Where have all the Muses gone? Platonic ideals, goddesses, mistresses, lovers, and wives whom poets and painters called on for inspiration? Not a good sign for the arts... more» It is 30 years since the Sony Walkman first appeared – and half of the populace became deaf to the existence of the other half. A.N. Wilson finds nothing to celebrate... more» The Soloist is a sentimental film that makes cheap use of a remarkable book about an encounter with the problems of a homeless, mentally ill musician... more» Pedagogy of the Oppressor. Another reason why U.S. schools of education are so awful: the ongoing influence of Brazilian Marxist Paulo Freire... more» Is there a formula for a good life? For 72 years, researchers have followed 268 men through war, career, marriage and divorce, and old age... more» Ron Rosenbaum loves airport best-sellers: “I see them as our Nostradamuses, literary canaries in the dark coal mines of our paranoia.” His latest find... more» Some European politicians now suggest that immigrants ought to be expected to respect the values and customs of their new homelands. A bit late in the day... more» Literary tourism. Even Shakespeare’s place of birth is a Victorian construct, a phony home for an aspiring bard, a taste of “merrie olde England”... more» “The emotions you get from listening to Mozart are like the faint glimpses of ultimate reality we get from quantum experiments.” Yeah, in Quantum Theory, anything goes... more» God is back! Religion is on the rise, or so it is claimed, because religion makes you happy. It may seem bad manners for atheists to say it, but so does owning a pet.... more» I.F. Stone was a fellow traveler in 1937, and freely admitted as much. But he was never a spy for Stalin, whose pact with Hitler had thoroughly disgusted him... more» Did you know the woman in the Starbucks logo is Queen Esther of the Jews? Just part of a vast Israeli plot against Arab people. Greg Sheridan can tell you more... more» The democratic nature of the net has created a mass of undifferentiated data, accurate, speculative, and absurd. Consider conspiracy theories... more» Protestors of a different sort: homeowners who didn’t walk away from mortgages, business owners who don’t want corporate welfare, bankers who never needed bailouts... more» If beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and the earth wobbles under the weight of six billion beholders, what is beauty then? Ihab Hassan wonders... more» Underdogs. When Vivek Ranadivé decided to coach his daughter’s basketball team, he chose to speak to the girls calmly, to convince them with reason and common sense... more» The American Musicological Society denounces the use of music in torture. So high-minded to worry about Guantánamo inmates. How about the tortured plight of younger musicologists?... more» Fifty years ago this month, physicist and author C.P. Snow addressed “The Two Cultures,” the gulf between literary intellectuals and natural scientists... more» Exclamation marks used to be frowned on. But now we use them all the time! Hurrah!!! What is it about email that makes people so excited?... more» “What year was Pearl Harbor bombed?” Such direct questions are byproducts of literacy and do not sit easily in any oral culture, says John McWhorter. Consider inner-city America... more» The traditional obituary is an art form nasty, brutish, and short, one that takes the scrambled up thing that is a human life and smashes it into a tidy narrative... more» Heirs to Fortuyn. Muslim immigration and sclerotic welfare states are by degrees pushing Europe to the political right. Bruce Bawer explains... more» No matter how much you think you’re ready for parental mortality, says Christopher Buckley, when the moment comes, “it comes at you hot, hard and unrehearsed”... more» A.N. Wilson has been a believer, then an atheist, and has come out the other side as a believer once again. He explains his personal pilgrimage... more» Mark Edmundson wants his fellow literature profs to give up “readings” of works of literary art. Ignore Marx’s, Freud’s, Foucault’s, or Derrida’s points of view: just read the books... more» George Bernard Shaw said a “hideous fatalism” lay at the heart of Darwinism, “a ghastly and damnable reduction of beauty and intelligence.” Oh, really? Brian Boyd on Darwin and purpose... more» The Rosetta Stone is a wondrous object, but who should own it? The Macedonians? The Egyptians? The French, who deciphered it? The Greeks? The British, who have taken good care of it?... more» Ian McEwan’s Atonement alienates readers who dislike what they regard as a trick at the end. Maybe they feel guilt at having been so moved by the novel’s conventional romantic power... more» We can talk up wind and solar power all we want. But billions of people in China and India will never trade 3¢/kwh coal for 15¢ wind or 30¢ solar. Time to get real, says Peter Huber... more» “Workers of the world, unite!” Karl Marx said that workers had “first of all to settle things with their own bourgeoisie.” Now may be the moment, argues Leo Panitch... more» The Special Interest State feeds on itself; the larger and more complex government becomes, the higher the costs of monitoring it. No one without a strong interest can even keep track... more» As much as Anthony Grayling admires the art, music, and literature of the West, it is the world-transforming insight and power of science that is the great achievement of humanity... more» As you read this, would-be genocidaires are out there, thinking about it: whom to kill; how many; how to do it. Also: whether they can get away with it. Will you let them?... more» Natural habitats – trees, water, wildlife – give us a sense of deep pleasure, says Paul Bloom. At the same time, we feel anxiety about the possibility of nature’s loss... more» Western postmodernism has roots in the failure of revolutionary politics, says Terry Eagleton. Islamism is a response to the defeat of the Muslim Left, with religion replacing politics... more» “Liberty is a form of order,” writes Roger Scruton, “not a license for anarchy and self-indulgence. We should cease to mock the things that mattered to our parents”... more» Much recent British fiction falls into the shrill, misogynous, snobbish “Thatcher’s Britain” genre. But what did Britain look like to novelists before Thatcher took office?... more» Realism is central to storytelling today, many critics will claim. Yet it wasn’t always so in the past, argues Ted Gioia, and it may not remain so for long... more» Virtually all warnings can be viewed as premature, since the date of a warned-against event may be uncertain. Consider warnings against the housing bubble... more» How to handle class: whoever you meet, your dress and your bearing must convey the message, “I am freer and less terrified than you are”... more» Was David Hume an atheist? An agnostic? Both categories of nonbelief are too crude for such a subtle, witty ironist. Simon Blackburn shows why... more» The Elements of Style: for fifty years we’ve been fed this toxic mix of purism, atavism, and personal eccentricity that is not even grounded by a proper grasp of grammar... more» As a candle-carrying altar boy, Brendan O’Neill had enough religion forced down his throat. But the memories don’t make atheist preachiness any more bearable... more» Notorious for its violence, misogyny, and gleeful amorality, though less well known for its biting social commentary: Grand Theft Auto IV polarizes opinion... more» Our genes are not just selfish. We also care about loyalty, respect, tradition, and religion. Our evolved moral emotions are about our families, our friends, and our groups... more» Postmodernism was beyond good and evil just as the financial bubble was beyond value fact and value fantasy. “It’s true because we say it is” has run its course, writes André Glucksmann... more» Economists should abandon the idea that they can confidently predict without causing people to believe their predictions. They need to replace their false modesty with true moderation... more» Europe may think it has retired from its historical tasks, having done and suffered so much. But history will not let Europe off the hook quite so easily, writes Adam Kirsch... more» Whatever his actual theology, John Rawls’s life and writings, indeed his whole theory of justice, are infused with feelings that reflect a deeply religious temperament... more» Adam Smith’s “invisible hand” is a force that creates a spontaneous order which, without asking for much, solves the enormous task of social coordination... more» Why, my friend asked, was I so quiet? I said my kid was in the hospital. Leukemia? I wanted to tell her I would hack off my right arm for it to be as simple as cancer... more» “Energizer Bunny Arrested! Charged with Battery.” Why do we hate puns – and love them, too? Joseph Tartakovsky on the mystery of the pun... more» Global warming, says Freeman Dyson, “has become a party line,” promoted by experts crippled by a conventional wisdom they have created for themselves... more» “The river rises, flows over its banks / and carries us all away, as mayflies floating downstream.” Gilgamesh, like many later thinkers, learned something about nothing... more» Narcissistic tendencies – confidence, extraversion, a desire for power – can actually help to make you a good leader. But if you’re a true narcissist... more» Adverbs like surprisingly, predictably, and ironically tell the reader what to value in a sentence before he has read it. Even William Zinsser had to learn to avoid them... more» We worry around here: are they about to declare Arts & Letters Daily addicts mentally ill? That’s what experts want to do with Internet addicts... more» Setting achievements of Mesopotamia and Greece side by side is a useful exercise, says Roger Sandall. What do we learn from the comparison?... more» The economic downturn is a profound threat to the autocratic regimes of the world, from China and Russia to Venezuela and the Persian Gulf states... more» When the time came, Alexander Hamilton put on his glasses and fired above Burr’s head, shooting some twigs off a cedar tree. Burr aimed to kill... more» Let’s face it, Twitter marks an advance in freedom and any backlash against it is doomed. For the fault lies not in our Tweets but in ourselves... more» “I never thought,” says Roger Scruton, “when I finally put the old humanism behind me, that I would ever feel nostalgia over its loss.” But just look at the New Humanism... more» Everyone else is getting a bailout. Why not the publishing industry? Democracies need books as much as they need banks and cars... more» The killer’s blood was on the weapon, but a DNA search yielded nothing. Why not comb through DNA records to find the killer’s relatives? Just might crack the case... more» “Most people who bother with the matter at all,” wrote George Orwell in 1946, “would admit that the English language is in a bad way.” Was it, back then? Is it so bad today?... more» The beauty, intelligence, grace, complexity, and wit that make Lolita a work of art deepen our well of compassion and sympathy, says Francine Prose, whether we like it or not... more» The American project: a different way for people to live together, unique among the nations of the earth, and immeasurably precious... more» “Like Pascal, like Kierkegaard and Tolstoy, indeed like Nietzsche....” Who are you reading? Must be George Steiner. If you don’t care much for high culture, Steiner will care on your behalf... more» Terry Southern, author of Dr. Strangelove, was a satirist, to be sure. Also journalist, novelist, playwright, and producer of precocious, unclassifiable mélanges of fact and fiction... more» Not so long ago conservatives were equating liberalism with fascism; today, they have done a 180-degree turn: liberalism is now synonymous with socialism... more» It is given to very few writers of fiction to create an imperishable character. Let us give thanks then to John Mortimer for Horace Rumpole, old rogue and old hero of the Old Bailey... more» A nation of jailers. The American project of civic inclusion remains incomplete, says Glenn Loury, as long as so many blacks remain in prison... more» We don’t need a “new capitalism.” We need to go back to a truer, deeper understanding of Adam Smith, A.C. Pigou, and other thinkers, says Amartya Sen... more» Woolf, Rhys, and O’Connor sounds like a law firm, and indeed it could be – a firm sure to lay down clear laws and illuminating precedents for women writers... more» Down with Facebook: not just because of the fake “friends,” but because of the stultifying mind-numbing inanity of it all, the sheer boredom... more» The Philadelphia Flower Show’s explosive displays of color and petals and odors are excessive, but they are also a rather timely kind of excess... more» In our universities we ought to keep on studying philosophy, music, and art. But how about a nod toward the fact that 27,000 children die every day from preventable causes?... more» Are men really funnier than women? Here are one or two theories of men’s vs. women’s humor. Or is it three, or seven, theories?... more» Most of what scholars need for research these days is on the Internet. Oh yeah? So you’re trying to trace a judicial duel held before the French King in 1386... more» |
New material is added to Arts & Letters Daily six days a week. We continually test links for reliability. Despite our best efforts, links may fail (often only temporarily) without warning. We apologize for any inconvenience.
New links are added at or near the tops of sections, with older ones sliding down the columns accordingly. Most items will continue to be available for five or more days.
As most links will eventually expire, sometimes after only a few days, we urge readers who see an item worth keeping to save or print it while the link is still valid. Items removed from Arts & Letters Daily are transferred to our 2009 ARCHIVE. We also retain archives for items removed in 2008, 2007, 2006, 2005, 2004, 2003, 2002, 2001, 2000, 1999, and 1998.
Our motto, “Veritas odit moras,” is from line 850 of Seneca’s version of Oedipus. It means “Truth hates delay.”
We’ve a selection of Arts & Letters Daily gifs and jpgs website owners can use for linking. Click here to see them.
Advertising on this page is available. For further information on gaining access to one of the most discerning and influential audiences on the Internet, click here.
Editor: Denis Dutton
Managing Editor: Tran Huu Dung
Reader suggestions for links are always welcome. Send them here.
We are keen to hear from readers who detect errors on the page. Please let us know here.
Coding, format, and on-site content copyright ©2009
The Chronicle of Higher Education
editor@chronicle.com
