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Easy grades, light reading loads, and above all a prof you can enjoy. Today’s university culture is one of all entertainment, all the time... more»
Che Guevara presided over the Cuban Revolution’s first firing squads. He founded Cuba’s “labor camps,” useful for dealing with gays, dissidents, AIDS victims... more»
Rules of debate. You may not stick fingers in your mouth pretending to vomit while your opponent speaks. Do not use the terms girlie-man, frog, or bozo. Elevator shoes are strictly forbidden... more»
The story of Oskar Schindler was not something Thomas Keneally found. Rather, it found him. He was looking for a briefcase. In Beverly Hills... more»
Hannah Arendt’s imperious tone, her condescension toward “oppressed” Negroes, makes her essay, “Reflections on Little Rock,” an uneasy read today... more»
Vanity Fair shows us one of the great personalities of fiction: the charming and utterly amoral Becky Sharp. Now also in a feeble, lumbering mess of a movie... more»
The essay as a literary form does not take as its task the defense of a position. Essays meander. They explore. They surprise not just readers, but their writers... more»
Chimps who look identical to us are as different in chimp eyes as a Kikuyu looks different to a Scot in our eyes, says Richard Dawkins. So what is race about?... more»
McMoralism condemns the lower orders for making the wrong food choices. The issue is less about fast food and more about the kind of people who eat it... more»
Einstein’s doubts about the truth of the Old Testament carried over to the “complete truth” he was taught in physics. Having been fooled once... more»
Prostitution is sex at its most pure: it’s lust, free of ulterior motives. Sebastian Horsley wants “to fall into a woman’s arms without falling into her hands”... bad taste advisory»
In our post-ideological age, there is still one big idea to fill the void left by defunct belief systems. It’s powerful, enjoys worldwide popularity, and it is very dangerous... more»
William Shakespeare, his life so plain, his works so fancy, became for his age the closest thing we might see to an overnight sensation... more»
The Wahhabi Koran: “Guide us to the Straight Way...not [the way] of those who have earned Your Anger (such as Jews), nor of those who went astray (such as Christians).” Huh?... more»
Leonardo da Vinci was in our terms a consultant: a bit of David Hockney, some Stephen Hawking, and a civil engineer... more»
The litany of death, turmoil, and pain visited on Armenia leaves you surprised that the country still stands at all... more»
Exuberant people can exhibit mania, poor judgment, and be a pain in the neck. Exuberance still is a key to success... more»
After all the ups and downs of the energy market, this at last looks like the end of cheap oil. We won’t run out next week, but... more»
Capitalism depends on an idea of counterculture to peddle new styles to rather ordinary people. But we’re all rebels now... more» ... more»
Globalization’s ozone hole: the poor countries that won’t join the modern society of nations. They are a threat to everyone... more»
Landon Carter railed against his son, watched the weather, and caught hummingbirds, as told in his diary of colonial America... more»
When The New Yorker finally ran one of Richard Yates’s stories, his daughter gave the box of his ashes a shake: “Way to go, Dad!”... more»
“Every woman has a beautiful body,” Desmond Morris says, “beautiful because it is the brilliant end-point of a million years of evolution”... more»
Michael Oakeshott called Isaiah Berlin a “Paganini of ideas,” which is better than what Berlin called Oakeshott... more»
As Milton did with Satan, so did Graham Greene give his wicked, ghoulish characters and dodgy dealers all the best lines... more»
The Electoral College as a way to choose a president is a mess. But the alternatives show perhaps the Founding Fathers were right... more»
From Blade Runner to Total Recall to Paycheck, the films get worse in a kind of vast, black conspiracy against Philip K. Dick... more»
The sullen counts against him persist to this day: Ulysses S. Grant was “drunk, butcher, scandal-monger”... more»
British biology’s origins are modest. Darwin and his plankton, Wallace and his beetles: boys on bicycles with butterfly nets... more»
History treated the great anti-Stalinist Victor Serge badly. But as he said, “History can only impose its solutions by running people over”... more»
Anton Chekhov looked at life in all its banality and tragic comedy and refused to make a judgment. But what stories he told... more»
Development first, and then put democracy in place. It’s a bad idea. Poor countries need democracy first, and more of it... more»
Capital punishment. Janet Reno says it doesn’t cut murder rates, Orrin Hatch says it does. Who’s right? Easy question? No!... more»
Christopher Hitchens sips a whisky enveloped by his usual cloud of Rothmans smoke. Sure, he’s backing Bush. But that doesn’t mean... more»
Your beliefs are like your wardrobe. How dare anybody question your style? Your ideology is your own. As for evidence... more»
Fortune cookies were born in Los Angeles in 1918. They may be de rigueur in U.S. Chinese restaurants, but don’t try selling them in China... more»
In 1654, a small boatload of refugees, expelled from Brazil by the Portuguese, arrived in New Amsterdam – the first Jews... more»
A few lucky kamikaze pilots survived WWII. So how do they feel about being likened to Islamic suicide bombers? Just ask one... more»
To read the sonnets as sexual autobiography is tempting. But it’s here Shakespeare is at his most open and most elusive... more»
Elizabeth Kübler-Ross’s ideas have comforted some people. But then bogus theories and pseudoscience often can... more»
Get out and vote! Even though you know that it will not make a damned bit of difference to the outcome. Jim Holt faces election reality... more»
Françoise Sagan, who reached the top the NYT bestseller list at age 19 with fiction perfect for its day, is dead... more» ... more» ... Le Monde
Did God make autumn leaves bright red to please Sunday painters? Or to scare off bugs? Or is it an accident?... more»
Nikolai Getman’s paintings of life and death in the Soviet gulags are uniquely chilling documents of a dark episode... more»... images.
An academic at a party once tried to show his disdain for Philip Roth by pretending to mistake him for Herman Wouk. It gave Roth an opportunity... more»
He wouldn’t give his own baby girl a bath. An angry ex-girlfriend might twist the truth. A tickle is sex abuse, a hug is lechery. Children lie. Ed Sampley knows... more»
Professors sport bad tweed and worn-out black. Men wear sweaters knitted for them in 1988. Some strive painfully for a jaunty look. The women? Oh, dear... more»
Preventive detention as a means to combat terrorism. It’s an idea the U.S. has long felt uneasy about. Time to face the arguments, says Thomas F. Powers... more»
Fundamentalism, taking holy writ literally and dogmatically, is what science best resists, says Umberto Eco: provando e riprovando – try, try again, and reject... more»
The Germans today deeply love their natural landscape, enjoying the same emotions felt by other nationalities. But history denies them a chance to take pride in being German... more»
“If I were Poet Laureate,” says Joseph Epstein, “I would put a poem in every pair of pajamas, fortune cookie, and NHL game program published during my tenure”... more»
Sovereignty is such an ordinary notion that we never call it into question. Compared with “justice” or “democracy,” it’s a philosophical embarrassment... more»
Vision and flight have evolved many times over. But what of evolutionary one-offs? The spider with its diving bell. The beetle that sets off explosives. So weird, so wonderful... more»
Contemporary society pays lip service to the innovator, but really loves the conformist. Look at book publishing, says Lindsay Waters... more»
If philosophy is the new rock ’n’ roll, is Alain de Botton its Colonel Tom Parker? More likely its Pat Boone: all ideas made bland, sanitary, digestible... more»
Not materialistic enough. That is the problem with Americans. Less and less they want stuff, more and more they want experiences. Virginia Postrel explains... more»
Environmentalism has flowed into the gaps left by political ideology and religion. To buy organic and recycle makes you so much holier than the next guy... more»
Objective truth is an illusion, says Stanley Fish, and even to worry about the nature of truth is a waste of time. Michael Lynch wonders if that’s true... more»
Debates on imperialism turn the ideas of Marx and Lenin into “zombie categories” – terms that seem to make sense only because nobody takes them seriously... more»
Moralized shame and disgust are a bad basis for law and punishment, argues Martha Nussbaum... more». Shame? We need more of it, says Roger Kimball.
Philosophers are a nuisance, as are children – and neurotics. Nuisance creates a resistant, or even hostile, environment, inviting the avoidance it fears... more»
David Brooks explains his huge output: “My desperate loneliness and pathetic sadness make me work to fill the hollow void that is my life.” John Updike uses drugs... more»
“Mr. Oppenheimer, given what has happened since, would you again accept to develop the bomb? Even after Hiroshima?” “Yes”... more»
The foundations of civilization are but modest: consider for instance games of peekaboo and patty-cake... more»
A self-absorbed man shocked into deeper self-absorption by the fall of the Twin Towers. Art Spiegelman, annoyingly full of himself... more»
Jan Morris is an optimist: “Youth, hope and silliness go together,” she writes of Sydney, “in cities as in people”... more»
Alfred Russel Wallace was almost a great scientist. Alas, were it not for the politics, the religion, the séances... more»
Intellectuals: feared as sinister minds yet pitied as bumbling eccentrics who wear their underpants back to front... more»
Stalin and Churchill, like two aging real estate brokers, sat across from each other and determined nations’ fates... more»
Most people who own dogs, or who are owned by dogs, treat them as family. Lucky dogs – and lucky families... more»
In hindsight, it seems so clear that eugenics was a fascistic notion, its adherents deluded or racist. But in the 1930s... more»
All attempts to duplicate the violins of Stradivarius have so far failed, in the same way chemists can’t duplicate fine wine... more»
“Oedipus, schmoedipus. So what, as long as the boy loves his mother?” Psychoanalysis has become a Jewish joke... more»
Truman Capote appeared as a “gorgeous apparition, flitting and fluttering” up the corridors of The New Yorker... more»
For John Gray our faith in progress in politics and ethics is a sad illusion, “The Prozac of the thinking classes”... more»
The part of Poland where P.G. Wodehouse was interned by the Germans was bleak: “If this is Upper Silesia, what must Lower Silesia be like?”... more»
George and Laura Bush have cleverly revived the Clintons’ promise of “two for one,” says Naomi Wolf. Now with the help of the bossy Mrs. Kerry... more»
Nostalgia, hatred, nausea, guilt – urgent feelings of European Jews in America, and the writers this immigrant culture produced... more»
Alexander the Great did not have a mounted professor of Greek in the front line of his cavalry. But he does now... more»
Libertarians are locked in a do-or-die battle with social conservatives for the soul of the Republican Party. So what of the Democrats?... more»
Arthur Miller and Marilyn Monroe: great American mind meets great American body. And the story’s not over yet. Not by a longshot... more»
Shame, indignation, shyness: whatever causes blushing, that red face seldom occurs when we are alone. It marks us as social animals... more»
The Voynich manuscript has for centuries foiled attempts to decipher it. Now its mystery is solved. Could this be the start of something?... more»
Sometimes he seems an Abbie Hoffman, other times a Milton Friedman, or the lead guitarist of Iron Maiden. Strange that Lewis Lapham... more»
Democracy seems a lovely and benign idea, but carries in itself seeds of a dark possibility: mass murder... more»
“Home is, I suppose, just a child’s idea. A house at night, and a lamp in the house.” V.S. Naipaul likes the idea of home... more»
Did the man who wrote The Merchant of Venice and created Shylock ever meet a Jew? It seems unlikely, and yet... more»
Do you prefer a shower to a bath? Are you fascinated by fire? Feel uneasy indoors? And what’s the point of such questions?... more»
Your job is pointless, inane. You can be replaced by the cretin sitting next to you. So work as little as possible. Here’s how... more»
Islam is changing. 9/11 and Beslan are leading millions of Muslims to question their faith. It could be the start of a Reformation... more»
Tchaikovsky’s music could have all the “brutal, wretched jollity of a Russian holiday. We see vulgar faces, hear curses, smell vodka” Oh?... more»
Call them assailants, bombers, captors, commandos, fighters, guerrillas, gunmen, militants, radicals, rebels, or activists. Anything but terrorists... more»
Alcohol makes us happy for no reason. But wine – ah, it gives us a reason to let alcohol make us happy without one... more»
Women are more prone to create and protect life than destroy it. That at least has been the common belief. Till now... more»
The circularity of Arab politics: denial of its own failures brings greater failures. New crises are blamed on the West or Jews who victimize Arabs. That in turn... more» ... more» ... MEMRI.
In order to serve you better, we need to know which order you belong to. For Primates, press 1. Cetacea, press 2. Jesuit, press 3. If you are a Mason or have a rotary phone... more»
Give up mind/body dualism, says Paul Bloom, and you give up the idea that we survive the destruction of our bodies. Neuroscience can be a bitter pill... more»
The job of criticizing Bush’s “fatal vision of a world order,” says Jürgen Habermas, can succeed by keeping itself completely free of anti-Americanism... more»
Contrary to general perception in the U.S., the French are neither wimps nor weasels when it comes to fighting Islamic extremism. Bret Stephens explains... more»
Graham Greene wrote of “perfect evil walking the world where perfect good can never walk again, and only the pendulum ensures that in the end justice is done”... more»
Most business books are little more than expanded PowerPoint shows, with bullet points and sidebars setting out unrelated examples or unconnected ideas... more»
Seduced her daughter’s boyfriend! Daytime reality TV can tell us more about the state of the culture than the stuff that goes by that name in prime time... more»
The deafening silence of the Arab-Muslim world over mass murder in Darfur shows an entrenched racism no one wants to know about. Salim Mansur speaks out... more»
No democracy can flourish against plutocratic, imperial forces, says Cornel West, without citizens girded by Socratic questioning, prophetic witness, and tragicomic hope... more»
The liberation of Paris was a brief episode of joy. But the city settled down to a life that was muted, bruised, forlorn. Paula Fox was there... more»
There are maybe 175,000 new book titles that show up every year. So are all those books good news or bad? Robert McCrumb considers the question... more»
Persons of high ability whose lives were too busy and hectic: the type to develop an ulcer. The remedy? Boiled milk, fish, antacids. A long, sad chapter in medical history... more»
Nothing like academics under threat to show a pack mentality. Consider the historians of Australia who’ve had their work exposed by Keith Windschuttle... more»
Booker Prize entries this year share distaste for the middle class (racist, xenophobic, etc.). Whores, beggars, or asylum-seekers naturally have hearts of gold... more»
“Are we ready and willing to act on the moral responsibilities history has so squarely placed upon our shoulders?” Ready, yes, says Norman Podhoretz. But willing?... more»
After 400 pages of Antonio Negri’s fantasy Marxism, Johann Hari felt like he’d been raped by a dictionary of sociology. But it wasn’t just the jargon... more»
Islamic economics bans interest, levies a wealth tax, and calls for honesty and altruism in commercial dealings. High ideals, easily corrupted... more»
Palestinian Christian suicide bombers don’t exist. Nor are there Tibetan suicide bombers. Political oppression is not the problem. Religion is... more» ... more»
Despite centuries of progress in economic theory since Adam Smith, people still refuse to behave logically in economic contexts. Why, dammit, why?... more»
You gave me gifts, God-Enchanter.
I give you thanks for good and ill.
Eternal light in everything on earth.
As now, so on the day of my death.
Czeslaw Milosz, 1911 - 2004... more» ... more» ... more» ... more» ... NPR audio. Bernard Lane wrote of Milosz the day before he died.
Edward Elgar’s music had for some an “almost intolerable air of smugness, self-assurance, and autocratic benevolence.” The perfect, boring Victorian... more»
When academics talk about “the Greeks” they never mean Melina Mercouri, but only people who lived 2000 years ago. Even a Cyclops could see something’s wrong here... more»
A gorgeous spectacle: mart, court, hive of industry where people meet, laugh, marry, die, paint, write and act. Virginia Woolf’s lost essay on London... more»
Conferences on French national identity now outnumber striptease shows in Paris. It’s France’s summer of discontent... more» Plus, there’s that wine problem. Why not just loaf?
If only academics had the wit and nerve to honor style: taking pleasure in the craft of writing and allowing their audiences to find joy in reading. If only... more»
Terrorism, all agreed 30 years ago, was a left-wing revolutionary shift caused by oppression. Fix the evil and no more terrorism. That was then, now is now... more»
Tom Hodgkinson wants love, sex, anarchy, booze, cigarettes, and freedom. Some would call his idea of life idle, mere laziness. Hey, he agrees... more»
The angel and devil that sit on the shoulders of Americans: the desire for material wealth and feelings of guilt about it. Why do we worry so much?.. more»
Exercises in “guided fantasy” and “sensitivity training” have replaced memorization in the classroom to free children for creativity. What an empty freedom... more»
Why encourage reading? Well, uh, we need informed citizens to have democracy. And, uh, reading conveys knowledge! It gives us the bounty of the past! And, uh... more»
High levels of Hispanic immigration and low rates of assimilation could change the U.S. into a land of two languages, two peoples, says Samuel Huntington... more»
What inspires disgust in the very idea of male homosexuality is a fear of anal penetration: stickiness, ooze, and death. A bad basis for law... more» ... more»
The late style. Artists tend toward a spirit of reconciliation and serenity in the works of their old age, argues Edward Said in his last essay... more»
A country’s literature is a kind of foreign policy, an expression of personality. Why don’t the British take more interest in the European literary carnival around them?... more»
Carbon dioxide isn’t the only familiar item of nature to be vilified in recent years. There’s also that nearby star of death and disease, a.k.a. the sun... more»
The New York Times’s “Portraits of Grief” aimed to highlight the 9/11 victims as a distinct personalities. Instead, it trivialized them... more»
No recent invention has done more to cheapen and degrade the art of music than the Sony Walkman. That day it was born was the day music began to die... more»
Forget about the Iraq war. The roots of anti-Americanism go deeper into questions of wealth and who has it, power and who exercises it... more»
If an unexamined life is not worth living, the examination ought to be longer than ten minutes. Tell it to Dr. Phil... more»
Denis Diderot began his great Encyclopédie as a French version of Chambers’s work, but it soon took on a life quite its own... more»
Robert Ingersoll wanted Reason, “throned upon the world’s brain, to be the King of Kings, and God of Gods.” Brave atheism... more»
Madame Bovary is the most precisely controlled formal masterpiece in the history of fiction. It is perfect... more»
Only about 10% of voters have a political belief system with defensible arguments. The rest will decide the next election... more»
Globalization works: India and China enjoyed a huge rise in standards of living in the 1980s and 90s. Martin Wolf explains why... more»
“Public intellectual” is an odd way to describe John Locke, but he was exactly that in the chaos of late-17th-century Europe... more»
So the failure to prevent the 9/11 attacks was the result not of bad luck, enemy skill, or an infinite array of targets. No, it was – what?... more» ... more»
The Enlightenment was a great epoch, but it’s been pilfered by the French. Time to return it to the British and the Americans... more»
Journalists on the bus with a candidate feed off the same pool reports, the same daily handouts, in the same mobile village. They’re a pack... more»
The French like to write about themselves: 200 books on Mitterrand, 3000 on De Gaulle. But they can do so with both rigor and elegance... more»
Pamela Anderson didn’t want to be burdened writing a big book. She’s a busy mom. She’s got a new clothing line, and... more»
Books for young people are filled with abuse, addiction, mental illness, pregnancy, suicide, self-mutilation. “Teachers love them”... more»
WWII, a war of heroism, tells us never to back down from a bully. The Great War, a war of waste, teaches us never to rush into a fight... more»
If Jimmy Breslin had chosen the priesthood as a career, his sermons would have out-thundered Martin Luther himself... more»
“Freedom of the high seas” means simply that the ocean is a wilderness where people get away with murder, and worse... more»
Christopher Ricks’s book on Bob Dylan validates baby-boomer nostalgia and narcissism. As though Dylan needs it... more»
Music performance was like a love affair for Glenn Gould, best conducted in private. No audience, if you please!... more»
“That stupid, fraudulent” war in Iraq, made by a “gang of ignorant, greed-crazed bastards.” Hunter Thompson gets high on outrage... more»
Our jaded, TV-saturated age is a tough one for magicians. Imagine the awe of the first audience for levitation... more»
The ad hoc iconography of The Da Vinci Code leaves readers with the delusion that they’ve learned something about Leonardo’s art... more»
A Devil’s Dictionary for our day: staff of McSweeney’s go into the future with a first-aid kit, hammer, and Burnt Icicle nail polish... more»
Edward Said was keen to attack ignorance and tribalism in the Arab world. Other critics of the Arabs were, of course, always wrong... more»
Terry Eagleton’s prose is full of platitudinous moralizing, silly similes, cheap nihilism, and off-the-peg Oedipal complexes... more»
Dmitry Mendeleyev was able to predict new elements with his great Periodic Table. Alas, he could not predict social events... more»
Language is the oldest and still smartest human technology. Nothing beats it in power and sophistication... more»
Canadian youth tend to see the U.S. as a menace. This news will surprise no one who looks at the history textbooks they are fed... more»
Rodney Dangerfield has his ways: “Try to make people like you. If they do, you can get a big laugh with a mediocre joke”... more»
Napoleon’s fatal 1812 march on Moscow. Few historic events have been as much obscured by ideology... more»
“People say that life is the thing, but I prefer reading.” Jorge Luis Borges preferred it to everyone except Mother... more»
Atheism envisioned a glorious future for a humanity freed from religion. It has not happened yet, and maybe... more»
Food is more than just fuel: it is polysaturated with culture. Consider haggis, hot dogs, Big Macs, or chicken soup... more»
“A book is a mirror. If an ass peers into it, you can’t expect an apostle to look out.” G.C. Lichtenberg dug deeper than anyone... more»
Whether applied to Bosnia and Vermeer or Parkinson’s disease and furniture design, Lawrence Weschler’s curiosity is intense and protean... more»
The rise of special interests in Washington gave bureaucrats an easy substitute for public approval. Voters? Who needs them?... more»
Roger Penrose starts with the simple stuff – Greek geometry. Anyone can follow him from there to a grasp of quantum gravity. He thinks... more»
Osip Mandelstam wrote of “huge laughing cockroaches” on Stalin’s top lip, “the glitter of his boot-rims.” The poem was a death sentence... more»
Truth is stranger than fiction since it need not be consistent. Is there a truth revealed by placing Henry James in a fiction?... more»
The Left can only win by losing its contempt for the unhip and the God-fearing. It must be for working people, blemishes and all... more»
Humans and animals alike talk about the same things every day: sex, real estate, food, who’s boss. Maybe... more»
Bush voters make babies, Kerry voters don’t. Evolution is still at work, and it spells bad news for the liberal left... more»
Guess who invented the idea of going to the beach? And guess when? The answer is improbable, judging by the local weather... more»
“God” told Leonard Bernstein to record anything he liked, and persuaded Stravinsky to record his own works... more»
Edward Teller was the father of the H-bomb. The father of the population bomb was Paul Ehrlich. At least the H-bomb worked... more»
Evelyn Waugh: was he an evil, greedy father who ate his children’s banana rations? Or is that the lies of another greedy Waugh?... more»
A “Moral Thermometer” was Benjamin Rush’s way to show which drinks lead to suicide. Steer clear of whisky, gin, and brandy... more»
Imagine a one-in-a-million shot happens to you. Well, don’t get too excited: it has to happen 295 times per day in the U.S. alone... more»
Will your kid stay home from school dances, introverted, unhappy? Or is he a Clint Eastwood type? You can tell at 4 months... more»
Romantics nostalgically long for ancient oral culture, filled with noble savages living close to nature. Not Walter Ong... more»
Fear of Flying does not in fact recommend adultery, says Erica Jong. “That’s the rap the book has gotten, but it’s really not fair”... more»
Trained by the Army, with help from Hollywood and Silicon Valley, today’s young soldiers may live, fight, and even die in The Matrix... more»
“I owe my Olympic medal to my parents, coach, and above all to the wisdom of the G.O.P. and President Bush.” Just imagine... more»
“I couldn’t put it down.” It was, uh, “magisterial.” Or, “wickedly funny.” As for Tom Payne’s guide to reviewese, it’s “a searing indictment!”... more»
He was a young patent clerk who did physics in his spare time and declared brashly that professional physicists were “out of their depth”... more»
There’s an excellent reason why economics is called the dismal science: no one is really sure of anything. Put two economists together, and... more»
Is classical music now a mere niche interest? Can China save it? Are there any Big Ideas on its horizon?... more» ... more» ... more»
A tribe with only two color words still knows other colors. But what if a tribe can only count one, two, and many?... more»
“Happy families are all alike,” as Tolstoy said. And happy magazines too. Consider, for instance, Moscow’s Novy Ochevidets... more»
Edward Teller was a cultured and witty man. But when he became preoccupied with his enemies, whether foreign or domestic... more»
Philosophers arguing can seem like boxers bashing each other. Of course, actual boxers might well be more artful... more»
Overworked? Bone-tired? Hey, get yourself a job in Europe! You can unwind and enjoy those endless vacations. Niall Ferguson explains... more»
Julia Child dealt with a glaring flaw in the American ethic: an aversion to enjoying what you’ve labored for. And damn the butterfat... more»
“I’m not guilty, Your Honor, I’m innocent. It’s my brain what did it.” Well, if you can’t control who you are... more»
Mongolia or Borneo were once real adventures. Now they even have Web access. The landscape of the mind is the last terra incognita... more»
Islamic democracy is what the politically correct call Turkey. But its democracy is no more Islamic than Canada’s is Christian... more»
Every time the Olympics alters its venue, millions of staff-hours of organizing know-how are lost. It’s time the games got a permanent home... more»
Like chimps, but with a more deadly refinement, human beings harness altruism and solidarity to wage war... more»
A three-hour film based on the work of Martin Heidegger is not likely to pack out theatres. But Finnish TV has picked it up. That’s a start... more»
“I am sick of nature,” says David Gessner. “Sick of trees, sick of birds, sick of the ocean.” And tired of dull, pious nature writing... more»
Welcome to Castro’s gulag: Cuba, the country where Neighborhood Watch takes on a whole new meaning. Eric Umansky reports... more»
Has Wahhabism been getting unfair press? Is it actually free from xenophobia and misogyny? Yes, says one scholar... more»
“Without a Kalashnikov you’re trash,” goes the saying in Sudan. It’s a brutal way to bring the Arabist agenda into force... more»
For progressives it was a sensible way to modernize the German language. For others it was state-ordered dyslexia... more» ... more» ... more» ... more»
Consciousness organizes itself in line with evolution: no divide between matter and soul, no spooks in the protoplasm... more»
Sidney Morgenbesser was the echte Jewish philosopher, down to his account of Jewish logic: “If P, so why not Q?”... more» ... more»
Paul Fussell describes the real texture of war: the cold, lice, rotten food, mutilations, and murders. With a literary eye... more»
We shop, therefore we are. It’s not exactly the American credo, but it comes close to being a national pastime, says Robert Samuelson... more»
Walter Benjamin knew the streets of Paris. In the end, he found himself hiking on a path to nowhere. His steps can be retraced today... more»
To succeed on TV, the party conventions need to take place on a single night with a phone-in poll to win the nomination: White House Idol!... more»
The overpopulation myth has such enduring appeal. Who doesn’t love a simple, easily graspable idea that seems to explain so much?... more»
What is dark energy? Can we fit black hole evaporation into quantum mechanics? Do extra dimensions exist? The big questions of physics... more»
Louis de Branges may not be a crank, but he is cranky. So if he has made the greatest math discovery of the last century... more»
Francis Crick, who helped discover the double helix shape of DNA, has died... San Diego Union ... BBC ... NY Times
The U.S. complains that China is undemocratic; Chinese call the U.S. hegemonic: powers on a collision course... more»
Managing ethnic diversity is costly, but worth it: many of the world’s richest countries are the most culturally varied... more»
In 1985, a young, scruffy, idealistic Joschka Fischer became Germany’s environment minister. In the end he has betrayed his supporters... more»
Money doesn’t buy happiness. Sure, but money can buy time: a shorter commute, more leisure, more rest. And that can make for happiness. ... more»
Hundreds of Indian Muslim women have been raped and killed by Hindus whose beliefs owe a lot, says Martha Nussbaum, to European fascism... more»
Famous mainly in the West, and only because he was a Stalinist at the right moment, Pablo Neruda was both a bad poet and a bad man... more»
Private firms have a big say in military budgets, foreign policy, and war. This is now normal, admits John Kenneth Galbraith, but it remains hidden... more»
Exposing fraudulent contests, naming the sycophants, just cleaning house: it’s Foetry, the “poetry watchdog”... more»
Cultural wasteland, economic nightmare, outlaw, parasite, pariah. That’s America, in some European eyes. Bruce Bawer explains... more»
Well-armed but diplomatic, industrious but green, Europe may be the world’s first metrosexual superpower. Parag Khanna explains... more»
“The specter of Vietnam has been buried forever in the desert sands of the Arabian Peninsula,” said Bush snr. Yet the ghosts of past wars haunt us... more»
Bobby Fischer’s was a fragile mind that lost its way once he gave up chess. Garry Kasparov on the sad decline of a chess genius... more»
Joe Millionaire, Theodor Adorno, eyebrow dandruff. And Judith Butler, of course. Just another annual meeting of the MLA... more»
A goal of vengeance makes for a tough political battle: “It’s foolish to fight people who want death; that’s what they are looking for”... more»
With enough grunting and pointing, cavemen got “the gist.” It’s no standard for spelling and grammar, argues Lynne Truss... more»
Celebrity architecture has created a desire for ever more iconic buildings. But what does the “Bilbao effect” really add to a city?... more»
Michael Moore plays at politics, and quite brilliantly. But in his self-love he evades being held to real political standards... more»
Alarm over American jobs lost offshore should be tempered by the hard facts about trade. Brink Lindsey has ten of them... more»
High school English teacher Wilmer Stone read his students’ stories and poems aloud in a dull monotone. It helped drive James Baldwin to write a masterpiece... more»
A credibility problem has made the U.S. government an “axis of disorder.” Will getting rid of the neo-cons be the fix?... more»
Dale Peck insists his attacks aren’t personal: “If Rick Moody stabbed me in an alley, and I didn’t like his book, one doesn’t necessarily abrogate the other”... more»
Take away differences in money, age, religion, and geography, and what remains of the common experience of motherhood?... more»
His sympathy for the Palestinian cause earned him the “Professor of Terror” tag. Yet Edward Said was less a radical than a “rootless cosmopolitan”... more»
For the post-war Left, American history is little more than a litany of misdeeds. This view now has a name: punitive liberalism... more»
Disco, inflation, Starsky and Hutch, polyester, consumer debt: little wonder the 1970s were the cradle of postmodernism... more»
Waiting for rescuers with his legs crushed under a horse, Cole Porter spent six agonizing hours composing the lyrics to At Long Last Love... more»
With all their awkwardness, plastic cups, and forced smiles, do college reunions exist only to solicit money for alma mater?... more»
In finding its way forward, Islam needs a Renaissance – and a Leonardo. It does not need a Reformation, or a Luther. Stephen Schwartz explains... more»
Europe pioneered the Internet as a mass medium, but the U.S. has made the best use of it: Yahoo, Amazon, Google, eBay, and Arts & Letters Daily... more» ... in German.
Like beer advertisers that use bikini-clad women, Michael Moore relies on the power of association rather than proof, argues Todd Gitlin... more»
In the U.K. and Oz, “liberalism” means small government, free trade, and self-reliance. For Americans, it means Bill Clinton... more»
Without Gilchrist’s Life of William Blake, the “gentle yet fiery-hearted mystic” might’ve been forgotten as another rambling madman... more»
Faced with unintelligible poetry, the typical reader goes through stages: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance. By the way, the poetry is still garbage... more»
Americans aren’t cowboys and Europeans are not wimps, says Timothy Garton Ash. Both are deeply on the side of freedom... more»
Falsehood wrapped in a crust of confusion and served with dollops of nonsense. It doesn’t get much worse than Hardt and Negri’s latest... more»
Hugh Hefner claims to have slept with “thousands of women – and they still like me.” How would he know?... more»
Rebecca Schroeter is a little known 18th-century daughter of a merchant. But she’ll earn fame as Haydn’s lover... more»
If women want men to do their fair share, they have to insist on it. No use to make other women do the work... more»
Americans see high-school dramatics as part of teens’ social ed. To the rest of the world, it looks torturous... more»
Both saw themselves as men of science: for Stalin and Hitler Marxist and racist “iron laws” ruled development... more»
Galvanism was discovered when a dissected frog’s legs twitched when they touched iron. Serendipity...
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Fermented grapes were being drunk in the Pleistocene. The origins of wine may yet show us the advent of civilization... more»
People find real beauty in the building and garden of the Getty Museum. Why not its parking lot?... more»
For Oz to find its way, every white person needs to sit down before a mirror, saying, “I live in an Aboriginal country”... more»
Anti-globalists think of export belts as sheer exploitation. Better than farming for $1 a day, says Martin Wolf... more»
Andover, Yale, military pilot, oil, politics: he always came up short. But maybe George W. does the everyman act better... more»
They were “young, trim, tall, literate, with jet black skin.” In the family history of almost every successful African American, there’s a Pullman porter... more»
The banality of evil was an easy idea: he who committed the most evil deeds might not have a wicked heart... more»
A lightbulb goes on in the brain of a chimp, and he uses a pole to get at a banana. How does the behaviorist explain that?... more»
As a naive 22 year old, Traudl Junge was appointed Hitler’s secretary, taking dictation from the dictator... more»
A culture of fear once pervaded the FBI. J.Edgar Hoover had the dirt on everyone from gangsters to presidents... more»
We may revile rats, but trouble in the rat population foretells trouble in our own, says Erica Barnett... more» ... more»
Before the days of the tabloids, royal mistresses weren’t just tolerated. They rivaled prime ministers in status... more»
Britain exploited its colonies but gave back roads, museums, water, religion. What did Russia give back? Not much, said Anton Chekhov... more»
Gertrude Himmelfarb rejects theory, be it based in class, politics, or postmodernism. But can history do without it?... more»
Traditionalism wages a war in which modernity is the enemy. It must destroy democracy to restore lost wisdom... more»
Queen Nefertiti had a way with roast chickens, ripping them apart, nary a knife or napkin in sight. She loved a feast... more»
When the Queen first appeared on the chessboard, she could only move to adjacent diagonal squares. How did she become its center of power?... more»
Radical feminists “spout bogus science and silence their critics with vicious tirades.” Neil Boyd wants a fight... more»
Even if income is doled out by merit or value of skills, we would still need to give the worst off a decent standard of living... more»
“Tell all” autobiographies rarely do that, especially when they’re politicians’. What do we really know about Clinton’s “dark places”?... more»
There is something fragile and moving at the core of W.B. Yeats’s arduous foolishness. It may not be heroic, but it is deeply human... more»
If bad governments make for many of the world’s problems, state-building could be the fix, says Francis Fukuyama...
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The study of primitive peoples was an armchair pursuit, until Malinowsky made a break into the field... more»
Déjà vu has for long lain in the “interesting but insoluble” box. It’s recently been roused by new theories... more»
Helena Rubinstein, Estée Lauder, and Elizabeth Arden: the short, hyper-ambitous, social climbing czarinas of beauty... more»
Believers often show stigmata, bleeding from their palms. Odd that they never manifest the gaping spear wound in Jesus’ side... more»
Little Johnny trying to force square pegs into round holes? Hey, he’s got dyspraxia, the hot, new dyslexia!... more»
The Freedom Vote project did energize the 1964 Democratic convention. But southern whites bolted, never looking back... more»
You read your conference talk aloud a hundred times, but on the day it never quite goes to plan... more»
Che Guevara, screenprint star of a million posters and t-shirts, is about to hit pay-dirt with his own road movie...more»
Anti-smoking messages may have saved millions of lives. Now the quitters eat too much, raising the obesity death toll... more»
Olympians just competed in Athens in the calculus and algebra events. Okay, but is math really a sport?... more»
Egypt has banned music videos showing women’s navels. As recently as I Dream of Jeannie, the U.S. did the same... more»
Paranormal beliefs are found in every society. Getting rid of them is a fine idea, but would cultures survive without them?... more»
The naturalistic skill of the Great Masters was aided by magnifying glasses and concave mirrors. Were they cheating?... more»
The world’s only truly great post-war opera is about a loner, sadist, pedo | |
