Books and Culture Archive

[2007] [2006]

May 2008

Gerald J. Russello
Unfinished Legal Business | Conservative public-interest law awaits a third generation of scholars.
9 May 2008

James Kirchick
Choosing the Whip | Heidi Holland explores the complex psychology of Robert Mugabe.
7 May 2008

Stefan Kanfer
Pyrrhic Victory | A new comic-book history chronicles a war between good taste and free expression.
2 May 2008

April 2008

Guy Sorman
Asia Rises, Unevenly | Bill Emmott describes the continent’s opportunities and obstacles.
30 April 2008

Daniel Flynn
Innocent Nevermore | Carl Oglesby was disillusioned first by America, then by the New Left.
25 April 2008

Peter Lawler
A Human Person, Actually | A powerful philosophical case for protecting embryos
18 April 2008

Brian C. Anderson
Dead Zone of the Human Spirit | Martin Amis looks unflinchingly at Islamic terror.
18 April 2008

Catesby Leigh
New Urbanists Point the Way Forward | But is anyone listening?
18 April 2008

Stefan Kanfer
Larger Than Life | Richard Widmark and Charlton Heston, R. I. P.
10 April 2008

Fred Siegel
Audacity’s Children | The American Left has a long history of utopianism.
4 April 2008

James Kirchick
The Passivist | Matthew Yglesias proves that doves, too, bury their heads in the sand.
3 April 2008

March 2008

Steven Malanga
Who’s Your Economist? | Richard Florida and his “creative class” are at it again.
28 March 2008

John H. McWhorter
Looking Past Race | Too many blacks are obsessed with racism, says Larry Elder.
26 March 2008

Paul Beston
After Tyson, the Desert | Boxing’s decline began the night Buster Douglas beat Mike Tyson, says Joe Layden.
21 March 2008

Heather Mac Donald
Beauty, While Supplies Last | New York City Opera’s delightful Falstaff is the kind of production that may soon be hard to find.
21 March 2008

Stefan Kanfer
History for Losers | Nicholson Baker’s objectively fascist new book doesn’t even rise to the level of polemic.
14 March 2008

Bezalel Stern
Home Away from Home | Bernhard Schlink’s latest novel raises provocative questions of justice and evil.
7 March 2008

February 2008

Ibn Warraq
The Pious Fraud | Tariq Ramadan, Islamist and equivocator
29 February 2008

Edward Short
Hotel Americana | From early in the nation’s history, hotels were part of its fabric.
22 February 2008

Steven Malanga
Dark Underbelly | Chris Burgard’s new documentary is a harrowing picture of illegal immigration in America.
20 February 2008

Charles Siegel
The Architect’s New Clothes | John Silber exposes the pretensions of celebrity “starchitects.”
15 February 2008

Daniel J. Mahoney
Whom Should We Admire? | Paul Johnson surveys heroes from literature, history, and politics.
13 February 2008

John H. McWhorter
Party of Chains | The greatest oppressors of blacks have been Democrats, says Bruce Bartlett.
8 February 2008

Jacob Laksin
Not Dead Yet | Bruce Thornton warns of Europe’s potential demise.
6 February 2008

Paul Beston
Comrades in Arms | The alliance between Reagan and Thatcher was even stronger than it looked—especially when they disagreed.
1 February 2008

January 2008

Christopher D. Geisel
Yes, It Is About Religion | George Weigel rejects secularized analysis of the War on Terror.
30 January 2008

Guy Sorman
Decline and Fall | Yegor Gaidar on Russia’s post-imperial syndrome
25 January 2008

Bruce S. Thornton
Twilight of the Nation-State | European transnationalism is a utopian dream, Pierre Manent warns.
18 January 2008

Jerry Weinberger
Rebels with Causes | Christopher Hitchens, Thomas Paine, and two modern revolutions
18 January 2008

Roger Kimball
Architecture’s Rogues’ Gallery | Two new books celebrate the trendy, ephemeral—and contemptuous.
11 January 2008

Phyllis Chesler
Brave Partisan | The many lives of Edith Kurzweil
9 January 2008

Nicole Gelinas
Intellectual’s Survival Guide | Cass Sunstein wants us to reconsider how we assess the risk of catastrophes.
4 January 2008

December 2007

Steven Malanga
The Blue-Collar Bard in Winter | Richard Russo’s new novel explores familiar terrain, but with a more wistful tone.
21 December 2007

Paul Beston
Obama’s Gordian Knot | The candidate’s politics are entangled in racial contradiction, says Shelby Steele.
14 December 2007

November 2007

Michael Knox Beran
Appetite for Destruction | Peter Gay’s history of modernism
30 November 2007

Phyllis Chesler
Beauty in a Cursed Land | Rosanne Klass’s reissued memoir describes Afghanistan in a more innocent time.
21 November 2007

Edward Short
Sloan Ranger | A new exhibit captures the achievement of American painter John Sloan.
16 November 2007

John H. McWhorter
Hip-Hop Graduates from Thuggery | Kanye West and other “conscious rappers” lead the music in a new direction.
9 November 2007

Stefan Kanfer
Working for Peanuts | For Charles M. Schulz, art imitated life.
2 November 2007

October 2007

Kay S. Hymowitz
Psychoanalyzing the Victim | September 11 spawned neurotic American chauvinism, claims Susan Faludi.
26 October 2007

Fred Siegel
Anti- and Anti-Anti-Islamists | The West and the challenge of Islamic fanaticism
19 October 2007

Jacob Laksin
Dissenter Inside the Tower | Yale professor Anthony Kronman laments the politicization of the humanities.
12 October 2007

Mark Riebling
Litany of Blunders | Tim Weiner’s CIA history lifts the cover on a half century of intrigue.
5 October 2007

September 2007

Harry Stein
Take No Prisoners | For Bob Shrum, politics is war, and anything goes.
28 September 2007

James Kirchick
Bay State Blues | What’s the matter with Massachusetts?
26 September 2007

Harry Stein
The Kingdom Gets the War on Terror Right | Peter Berg’s new film dares to portray Americans as the good guys.
21 September 2007

Steven Malanga
Life Lessons at Meerkat Manor | The Animal Planet series has something to say to humans, too.
14 September 2007

Sol Stern
Old-School Idealist | Albert Shanker nobly led a teachers’ union that eventually became part of the problem.
7 September 2007

August 2007

Steven Malanga
He Held Good Taste to Be Self-Evident | Thomas Jefferson was America’s first great wine expert.
31 August 2007

Guy Sorman
The Market Revolution | A new history provides an encyclopedic overview of the Chicago School of Economics.
24 August 2007

Bruce S. Thornton
Golden Threads | Former Muslim Ibn Warraq stands up for the West.
17 August 2007

Fred Siegel
The Againstocrats | An inside look at the unideological ideologues of today’s Left
10 August 2007

Harry Stein
Gore Imbalanced | The former vice president’s new book is itself an assault on reason.
3 August 2007

July 2007

Benjamin A. Plotinsky
Do We Do As the Romans Did? | Yes and no, of course.
24 July 2007

Theodore Dalrymple
Thanks for the Immunity | Maurice Hilleman was one of the twentieth century’s unsung heroes.
20 July 2007

Heather Mac Donald
Animating Ourselves | Lifted, a delightful contribution to our cartoon canon
16 July 2007

Paul Howard
Paint-By-Numbers Medicine | Jerome Groopman’s sobering portrait of doctors and diagnoses
9 July 2007

Daniel J. Mahoney
Living in Truth | A wise, quirky memoir from Václav Havel
6 July 2007

June 2007

David Gratzer
Simplisticko | Michael Moore’s new documentary is an uninformed caricature.
29 June 2007

John H. McWhorter
All Over the Field | Dave Zirin’s new “sports” book tells us more about the author than anything else.
28 June 2007

Paul Hollander
Iron Curtain Lady | For Christa Wolf, the socialist dream still flickers.
25 June 2007

Theodore Dalrymple
Breaking Away | An ex-Islamist tells his story.
19 June 2007

Nicole Gelinas
Shop ’Til You Drop | Benjamin Barber, consumed by his own book
18 June 2007

Heather Mac Donald
Cheers—and Loathing—at the Metropolitan Opera | Which will win out: glorious triumphs or trendy travesties?
14 June 2007

Fred Siegel
A Rising Tide Heals All Rifts? | For Brink Lindsey, affluence is a uniter, not a divider.
8 June 2007

Gerry Garibaldi
Boys Will Be Boys | A new guidebook reaffirms boyhood in all of its politically incorrect glory.
1 June 2007

May 2007

Glenn Reynolds
Open Source Warfare | John Robb’s chilling brief on postmodern terrorism
23 May 2007

Steven Malanga
A Mormon in the White House? | Hugh Hewitt says that Mitt Romney’s the man for the job.
11 May 2007

April 2007

Paul Beston
Freedom Fighters | Brian Doherty’s comprehensive guide to American libertarianism
20 April 2007

Fred Siegel
Subtraction by Subtraction | Modernist architecture has failed American cities.
13 April 2007

Steven Malanga
Unglamorous Mobsters | As a 1988 HBO documentary reveals, the real Sopranos were brutal—and banal.
4 April 2007

Kay S. Hymowitz
The Brooklyn Museum Strikes Again | Confusing hucksterism and art
3 April 2007

March 2007

Nicole Gelinas
The Foundations That Wouldn’t Die | What Bill Gates can learn from Andrew Carnegie and Andrew Mellon
30 March 2007

Douglas Murray
High Infidelity | Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s brave memoir
28 March 2007

Harry Stein
The Range of Pistol Pete | Pete Maravich’s influence on basketball is still alive today.
9 March 2007

Victor Davis Hanson
With Your Shield or On It | Zack Snyder’s 300: a spirited take on a clash of civilizations
7 March 2007

Katherine Ernst
Was Reagan a Liberal? | Yes, according to a new biography.
2 March 2007

February 2007

John Kekes
Words to Die By | A new series resurrects some of history’s bloodiest manifestos.
20 February 2007

Steven Malanga
Parenting vs. Poverty | It wasn’t government programs that saved NFL-bound Michael Oher.
10 February 2007

Benjamin A. Plotinsky
The Fanatical Philosopher | Michel Onfray’s weak case against monotheism
1 February 2007

January 2007

Stefan Kanfer
Four Stars for 24 | TV’s hottest thriller returns, as politically incorrect as ever.
23 January 2007

Howard Husock
The Compassion Gap | Conservatives give more to charities than liberals do—by a long shot.
18 January 2007

December 2006

Theodore Dalrymple
Fear of the Invisible | Epidemiologist John Snow made cities safer.
7 December 2006

November 2006

Theodore Dalrymple
A Man Out of Time | A life of poet R. S. Thomas entertains and illumines.
6 November 2006

October 2006

Theodore Dalrymple
The Avant-Garde of the Apocalypse | The Dutch and their Muslims
25 October 2006

September 2006

Howard Husock
Liberal Blinders | The author of a new book on public housing ignores his own evidence.
8 September 2006

June 2006

Theodore Dalrymple
All or Nothing | The quest for a moderate Islam may be futile.
4 June 2006

May 2006

Charles Upton Sahm
Trashing Giuliani | A silly documentary tries—and fails—to tar the record of America’s Mayor.
12 May 2006

Kay S. Hymowitz
The Mommy-Wars Insurgency | Essayist Caitlin Flanagan has enraged the feminists.
9 May 2006

April 2006

Theodore Dalrymple
The Murderer Next Door | The limits of sociobiology
24 April 2006

Theodore Dalrymple
Greek or Turk? | Bruce Clark’s exploration of a conflicted history raises profound questions of politics and national identity.
4 April 2006

March 2006

Theodore Dalrymple
Why New Vaccines Are Scarce | Blame the tort lawyers, argues Paul Offit’s important new book.
6 March 2006

February 2006

Katherine Ernst
Lefty Profs Exposed | David Horowitz’s The Professors profiles academe’s tenured radicals.
21 February 2006

January 2006

Howard Husock
Why Hollywood Loves Johnny Cash—and not Merle Haggard | It’s the Man in Black’s politics
13 January 2006

Stefan Kanfer
Spielberg’s Mendacious Munich | The film can’t distinguish justice from revenge.
10 January 2006