“I do not yet see the absolute necessity of extirpating the Christian religion from among us.” —Jonathan Swift I am sure it is possible to praise too highly James Reichley’s Religion in American Public Life, but it would take some doing. Reichley, a Senior Fellow at The Brookings Institution, has produced a superb historical and...
I am honored by the invitation to reflect with you on the life of our friend and colleague Leopold Tyrmand. There are those here who knew Leopold longer and better than I. But in the last several years I came to know him well enough that I am not surprised by the remark of one...
Decline, decay, the falling away from a former excellence. All the conventional definitions of decadence are negative on their face. The term denotes a state of decline, but it also connotes an enlightened view of that decline on the part of the user, who is sophisticated, worldly-wise, and never ever shocked. A very respectable hotel...