Among the more famous of these was tornembrace uncritically the testimony ofrnMark Fuhrman, the police detective whornturned up evidence at the scene of thernmurder and at Simpson’s house, andrnwho incidentally happened to be a selfadmittedrnsociopath with a long record ofrnracist actions. Another was Clark’s allowingrnthe case to come to trial at warprnspeed, which played to...

II. The hatreds they aroused, though notrnancient, were easily rekindled.rnHe identifies the decentralizing constitutionrnof 1974 as a contributing factorrnin the country’s dissolution; it made thernfederal government virtually impotentrnand unable to govern. Unfortunately, hernreflects on the point almost as an aside,rnas if to show he has read and agrees withrnSusan Woodward’s Balkan Tragedy.rnWhat he does state...

OPINIONSrnGermans in the Dockrnby Curtis Gatern’The German may be a good fellow, but it is better to hang him.”rn—Russian ProverbrnHitler’s Willing Executioners:rnOrdinary Germans and the Holocaustrnby Daniel ]onah GoldhagenrnNew York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.;rn622 pp., $30.00rnThis is a disturbing book: not simplyrnbecause the author, an assistantrnprofessor of government at Harvard,rnpoints an accusing finger at the...

Every Which Way But Uprnby Samuel Francisrn”The most perfect political community is one in which the middle class is inrncontrol, and outnumbers both of the other classes.”rn—^AristotlernUp From Conservatism: Why thernRight is Wrong for Americarnhy Michael hindrnNew York: The Free Press;rn295 pp., $23.00rnReaders of Chronicles may vaguely recallrnMichael Lind as the contributorrnof a few articles...

REVIEWSrnThe StupidrnCountryrnby Herbert I. LondonrnDumbing Down: Essays on thernStrip-Mining of American CulturernEdited by Katharine Washburnrnand John ThorntonrnNew York: Norton;rn329 pp., $25.00rnAccording to a recent Roper poll, onlyrn13 percent of the college graduatingrnclass of ’96 could pass a simple quizrnon material suitable for elementaryrnschool students. Ninety-two percent ofrnthose taking this quiz failed to identifyrnthe author or...

A Lost Artrnby Thomas FlemingrnThe New Austeritiesrnby Tito PerduernAtlanta: Peachtree Publishers;rn218 pp., $20.00rnReaders first met Lee Pefley as an oldrnman who returns to his hometownrnresolved to chastise public nuisancesrnwith a stick. Tito Perdue’s first novel, Leern(1991), took some reviewers by surprise:rnthe elegantly crafted naivete seemed tornstrike a balance between Borges and (tornmy mind) Kenneth Patchen....

chewing, sucking, envying, and going torncocktail parties.” For Lee the GoldenrnAge is not the splendors of the antebellumrnSouth, but the harsh and unremittingrntoil of his grandfather’s generation.rnComing across a photograph album, hernsees the very house he is living in, thernvery window he is staring out of, but theyrnare new and fresh. He looks at a...

OPINIONSrnMyths and Mistakesrnby Paul GottfriedrnWhat all the wise men promised has not happened, and what all the damnedrnfools said would happen has come to pass.”rn—Lord MelbournernThe Immigration Mystique:rnAmerica’s False Consciencernhy Chilton Williamson, jr.rnNew York: Basic Books;rn202 pp., $23.00rnIn this highly informative book,rnChilton Williamson, Jr., walks usrnthrough the tortuous history of Americanrnimmigration policy. Along the wayrnhe...

The Personal Heresyrnby Peter J. Stanlisrn”Every great man nowadays has his disciples, and it is always Judasrnwho writes the biography.”rn—Oscar WildernRobert Frost: A Biographyrnhy ]effrey MeyersrnNew York: Houghton Mifflin Company;rn424 pp., $30.00rnIn 1978 I published “Acceptable inrnHeaen’s Sight: Robert Frost at BreadrnLoaf, 1939-1941,” an account of three ofrneight summers of conversations with thernpoet in which—probably...

REVIEWSrnHis Final Lessonrnby Scott p. RicheitrnThe Sword of Imagination; Memoirsrnof a Half-Century of Literary Conflictrnby Russell KirkrnGrand Rapids: William B. EerdmansrnPublishing Company;rn497 pp., $35.00rnAfriend of mine has expressed the devoutrnhope that, upon his death, hisrnwife and children wih have the goodrnsense to burn his papers. While his mainrndesire is to prevent unfinished thoughtsrnfrom seeing the...

ties greater than those dreamed of inrnWashington, D.C., New York, and LosrnAngeles. Those possibilities are whatrnmake life worth living, and they—morernso than Kirk’s discussions of politics, orrnhis portraits of famous acquaintances—rnare what make The Sword of Imaginationrnworth reading.rnScoff P. Richert is the assistant editor ofrnThe Family in America, a publication ofrnThe Rockford Institute. He worked...

in available two-parent families to take inrnthese “orphans”—mostly the childrenrnof so-called welfare mothers—the likelyrnresult will instead be a new class ofrnsemipermanent government wards.rnAnother golden-age myth assumesrnthe presence of a father quietly preparedrnfor all crises and on hand at every formativernmoment of his children’s lives. Gillisrncounters that until quite recently fathersrn—and mothers—worked such longrnhours that they...

OPINIONSrnThe Fixerrnby Srdja Trifkovicrn”A politician … one that would circumvent God.”rn—^William ShakespearernBalkan Odysseyrnhy David OwenrnNew York: Harcourt Brace and Company;rn389 pp., $25.00rnThe title gives the game away: DavidrnOwen, a failed British politicianrnwho was for three crucial years (1992-95)rnEurope’s chief negotiator on the issue ofrnthe former Yugoslavia, seeks to cast himselfrnas a Homerian hero. After 400...

REVIEWSrnA Child’s Garden ofrnNeoconservatismrnby Paul GottfriedrnThe Neoconservative VisionrnFrom the Cold War tornthe Culture Warsrnby Mark GersonrnLanham, Maryland: Madison Books;rn368 pp., $27.95rnNow a law student at Yale University,rnMark Gerson has devoted severalrnyears of his young life to a lucrative task:rngilding the lily for neoconservative patrons.rnAs a contributor to Commentary,rnthe Wall Street journal, and the New Republic,rnhe...

tionalist understanding of the humanrncondition and of pohtical hfe. It hasrnfrontally assaulted the root assumptionsrnof the left, particularly those regardingrnthe universalization of political models,rnthe doctrine of human rights, and thernuse of public administration to achievernsocial change. It has also challenged thernneoconservative position—embraced byrnNeuhaus—that there have been two civilrnrights movements, a moderate Christianrnone followed by a...

a barbarian when he is not simplyrnsquealing like a stuck pig.)rnThese great essays recall the moral authorityrnand righteous anger of Emile Zola’srn”J’Accuse,” the great essay thatrnturned the tide for the Dreyfusards andrnagainst the anti-Semites in France at thernstart of this century, hideed, if the bookrnshould find its audience, Alexander willrnbe known as the Second Zola....

the American Constitution as “the greatestrninstitutional repository and transmitterrnof Enlightenment values.” But he alsornappreciates the importance of arnBurkean pietas or “nimbus of awe” aboutrnthe American Constitution, for withoutrnit there might be an “American nationalismrnthat would be aware of nothingrnabove itself.” He acknowledges that “religionrnand nationalism, which in otherrncountries are always potential and oftenrnactual enemies of...

Warren wrote, had always been creaturesrn”of the small town and farm,” and agriculturernwas the “readiest and probablyrnsurest way” for blacks to establish themselvesrneconomically and socially.rnStack calls attention to a phenomenonrnthat deserves further study. Unfortunately,rnshe spends too much time inveighingrnagainst Southern racism andrnracial antagonism instead of examiningrnthe conflict between industrial andrnagrarian values, to which she appearsrnoblivious...

OPINIONSrnRediscovering Philadelphiarnby George W. Careyrn”There is no liberty if the power of judging be not separated from the legislativernand executive powers.”rn—MontesquieurnThe Ninth Amendment and thernPohtics of Creative Jurisprudence:rnDisparaging the Fundamental Rightrnof Popular Controlrnby Marshall L. DeRosarnNew Brunswick: Transaction Publishers;rn216 pp.,$29.95rnThe theme that unites the short,rnsomewhat disparate eight chaptersrnof this book is the use by the...

REVIEWSrnIndispensablernPetrarchrnby Thomas FlemingrnPetrarch’s The Canzoniere, orRerurnrnMilgariuni fragmentarnTranslated by Mark MusarnBloomington: Indiana University Press;rn754 pp.. $59.95rnOld-fashioned English professors likernto speak of “the Canon” in reverentialrntones, as if there were a list of greatrnbooks as aneient as the Spartan king listrnand as hallowed as the kyrie. In fact,rnwhat they usually have in mind is a rummagernsale assortment...

of 15th- and 16th-century painting.rnHere is Laura in the early days:rnGreen clothes, bright red or darkrnpurple onesrnno lady ever worernor hair of gold has twisted inrnblond braid.rnI lere she is again, years after her death,rnrevived in memory:rnThe aura [raura=breezc = Laura]rnsighing gently as it movesrnthe verdant laurel and herrngolden hair,rnturns, with its aspects newrnand delicate,rnsouls...

tnitcrrestrial intelligence, and the notoriousrnnuelear w inter seare of a few yearsrnback. Sagan also includes religion—especialh”rnChristianity—which he smearsrnrather than attacks by a clever method ofrnguilt-b”-association. Ilis discussion ofrnreligion is immediately linked to thernwitch-hunting craze of the 16th century,rnon which he spends a significant part ofrnhis book. He describes the methods ofrntorture and the interrogation process,rnand...

vented a lightning rod: eroticism.”rnIn distinguishing eroticism and lo’e,rnPaz begins with the story of Eros andrnPsyche from Apuleius’s The Golden Assrn(or Metamorphoses). Eros, a cruel divinity,rnfalls in love with a mortal. Psyche,rnwho returns his love. The figure of Psychernis a Platonic echo, but as Paz observes,rn”an unexpected transformationrnof Platonism.” No mere object of contemplationrnon some...

OPINIONSrnWe Are Going, Gentlemenrnby R.S. Gwynnrn”Poetry is the language of the state of crisis.”rn—Stephane MallarmernK A-iPv;5 TTv-rnCommunity, Religion & Literaturernby Cleanth BrooksrnColumbia: University of Missouri Press;rn334 pp., $34.95rnThe Fable of the Southern Writerrnby Lewis P. SimpsonrnBaton Rouge: Louisiana State UniversityrnPress; 249 pp., $24.95rnWhen Cleanth Brooks died at 87 inrn1994, a great era of American literaryrncriticism...

REVIEWSrnAgainst the Invadersrnby Paul GottfriedrnThe Case Against Immigrationrnby Roy BeckrnNew York: W.W. Norton;rn287 pp., $24.00rnRov Beck’s brief against immigrationrnabounds in useful but also familiarrnstatistics: e.g., since the Immigration Actrnof 1965, 30 million immigrants, mostlyrnfrom Third World countries, have enteredrnthe United States; at least half ofrnour births in the last 30 years are traceablernto these immigrants;...

dressed the problem of nonaccountablerngovernment. If he had followed thisrncourse, it is doubtful, however, that Nortonrnwould have published his book. Andrnthere are occasions when publicizing halfrna case is better than nothing at all.rnPaul Gottfried is a professor ofrnhumanities at Elizabethtown College inrnPennsylvania.rnThe Eye ofrnthe Beholderrnby Philip JenkinsrnA Force Upon the Plain:rnThe American Militia Movementrnand the...

and conscience, of a society losing itsrnfaith both in its gods and in itself.rnThe story is told with words, obviously,rnbut the technique sometimes resemblesrna collage of commercial imagesrnfrom photographs, movies, TV shows.rnOne of the main actors (kept deliberatelyrnoffstage) is Martin Pressy, a spoiledrneffeminate rich kid who only discoveredrnhis metier—that of the highbrowrnpornophotographer—in 1968. Thernbizarre sequence...

OPINIONSrnTrouble in the Cityrnby Kenneth R. Craycraft, Jr.rn”In a sort of ghastly simplicity we remove the organ and demand the function. Werncastrate and bid the geldings be fruitful.”rn—C.S. LewisrnDemocracy on Trialrnby Jean Bethke ElshtainrnNew York: Basic Books;rn153 pp., $20.00rnRecently named Laura SpelmanrnRockefeller Professor of Social andrnPolitical Ethics at the University ofrnChicago, Jean Bethke Elshtain has...

Truth Against the Grainrnby Arnold Beichmanrn”Zeus gives no aid to liars.”rn—HomerrnNot Without Honor: The Historyrnof American Anticommunismrnhy Richard Gid PowersrnNew York: The Free Press;rn554 pp., $30.00rnRichard Gid Powers’ history is a powerful,rneven brilliant, piece of scholarshiprnwhich documents one of the mostrnbizarre political phenomena of the 20thrncentury.rnWhile Soviet communism, in its 70-rnyear dictatorship, was probably guilty...

REVIEWSrnThe Politics ofrnPropertyrnby Peter f. StanlisrnThe Political Economy ofrnEdmund Burke: The Role ofrnProperty in His Thoughtrnby Francis CanavanrnNew York: Fordham University Press;rn185 pp., $30.00rnAgreat many scholars have dealt inrnconsiderable detail with EdmundrnBurke’s party politics and political philosophy,rnand a few have examined hisrnthoughts on economics. But Francis Canavan’srnlatest book is the first thoroughrnand systematic study of...

The Languagernof Literaturernby Thomas FlemingrnThe Latin & Greek Poems ofrnSamuel JohnsonrnText, Translation,rnand Commentaryrnby Barry BaldwinrnLondon: Duckworth;rn299 pp., £55.00rn”Poets who lasting marble seekrnShould carve in Latinrnor in Greek.”rnWhen I last quoted those lines ofrnEdmund Waller, 1 was put downrnas a hopeless reactionary trying to restorernLatin as the language of literature. In therncase of the conservative journalist...

DesertrnPassagesrnby Gregory McNameernThe Mojavernby David DarlingtonrnNew York: Henry Holt;rn337 pp., $25.00rnOf the four major North Americanrndeserts, the Mojave has been, atrnleast until recently, the least explored.rnGood parts of the Sonoran Desert arernmore forbidding; most of the GreatrnBasin Desert lies farther from highwaysrnand settlements; and much of the GhihuahuanrnDesert is less interesting thanrnthe fiercely hot Mojave...

Nonsense as Nationalismrnby Thomas Flemingrn”There is always something new from Africa.”rn—Pliny the ElderrnNot Out of Africa: HowrnAfrocentrism Became an Excusernto Teach Myth as Historyrnby Mary LefkowitzrnNew York: Basic Books;rn222 pp., $24.00rnBy the early 1970’s, I had come to thernconclusion that American higherrneducation could not get any worse. Mostrnof the young and not-so-young Ph.D.’srnin the humanities...

REVIEWSrnBack to Parmenidesrnby John CaiazzarnThe Quantum Enigma:rnFinding the Hidden Keyrnby Wolfgang SmithrnPeru, Illinois: SherwoodrnSugden and Company;rn139 pp., $14.95rnI t is reported that when one ofrnPythagoras’s followers revealed thernPythagorean brotherhood’s deepest secret,rnthe discovery of irrational numbers,rnhe was killed. The discovery of irrationalrnnumbers came about as a direct result ofrnthe Pythagorean theorem, for the hypotenusernof a right...

alitv of the common life-world bv makingrnthe distinction between primary andrnsecondary qualities, which he borrowedrnfrom the ancient Atomists. Smith’s solutionrnto the bifurcation problem also hasrnan ancient proenance, for his assumptionrnthat discrete components of ourrnlife-world—observer and phenomenon,rntime and space, primary and secondaryrnqualities—are “distinguishable aspectsrnof one and the same reality” harks back,rnthrough Hegel, to Parmenides. Smith’srnapplication of...

At Loggerheadsrnby William BaldwinrnCaught in the Netrnhy Anthony V. Margavio andrnCraig /. Forsyth, with Shirley Laskarnand James MasonrnCollege Station:rnTexas A&M University Press;rn156 pp., $32.50rnThe Endangered Species Act is arncontroversial directive. The snailrndarter and spotted owl have gleaned nornend of headlines, having been used tornjustify the preservation of huge areas ofrnhabitat. Less well known is the...

OPINIONSrnThe Spirit of Atlanticrnby Bill Kauffmanrn”The Empire is peace.”rn—Napoleon IIIrn.V ‘ j i . HS’.rn,.. <•”-‘ “-.V ‘-”-AA^VIA/ . ‘» ‘•>•rn•••”‘•r’r—:r.?;t.lS^.’;:-V’.: ‘-•'”.•^^fr- -rn.” • ‘-rn’ …•”«?-j^ .. ; -•rn•cMl. -.rnWilliam Appleman Williams:rnThe Tragedy of Empirernhy Paul M. Buhle andrnEdward Rice-MaximinrnNew York: Routledge;rn318pp.,$l8.95rnBill Williams was an Eagle Scout, basketballrnstar, paperboy, and jazzrndrummer in the Atlantic, Iowa,...

REVIEWSrnUnbaptized Americarnby Philip JenkinsrnThe Godless Constitution: The CasernAgainst Rehgious Correctnessrnby Isaac Kramnick andrnR. Laurence MoorernNew York: W.W. Norton;rn191pp.,$22.00rnThe Godless Constitution is a selfdescribedrnpolemic against thosernwho believe that the United States was,rnis, or should be a “Christian nation.” Essentiallyrna historical analysis of the religiousrninfluences on the Kramers of thernConstitution, the book explores the superficiallyrncurious omission of...

Visions ofrnDisorderrnby Clyde WilsonrnThe Vision of Richard WeaverrnEdited by ]oseph ScotchiernNew Brunswick:rnTransaction Publishers;rn245 pp., $39.95rnRichard M. Weaver, 1910-1963:rnA Life of the Mindrnby Fred Douglas YoungrnColumbia: University ofrnMissouri Press;rn224 pp., $39.95rnRichard Weaver once wrote that itrnwas difficult to perceive the declinernof civihzation because one of the characteristicsrnof decline was a dulling of thernperception of value, and...

provocative symmetry in this memoir.rnHe writes of growing up in Peru and Bolivia,rnbringing his hfe up to the pointrnwhere he leaves for Europe at age 22, allrnthe while alternating chapters that coverrnhis candidacy for president of Peru inrn1990. Those chapters oi Bildungsromanrnor Kiinstlerroman offer us intimaternscenes of family life, albeit sometimes arntortured one, and, concurrently,...

irony and irreverence run at flood tidernon our campuses. Within the hteraryrncanon, writers such as Spenser, Milton,rnJohnson, Walter Scott, and Tennysonrnhave either disappeared into the hands ofrnspecialists or are mined and exploited forrnbizarre qualities or views.rnThe single remaining literary exceptionrnto this discarding, revision, and reinterpretationrnof texts is the work of Shakespeare,rnwhose piety and traditionalismrnsomehow retain...

OPINIONSrnScholarship and Bricolagernby E. Christian KopffrnShame and Necessityrnby Bernard WilliamsrnBerkeley: University of California Press;rn254pp.,$2S.OOrnSuppose it is true that we are living inrna post-Christian age. On what basisrnshall we live our lives, make moral decisions,rncreate and destroy? I suppose that,rnif Christianity were to disappear as thernguiding moral force in the United States,rnit would be replaced by...

REVIEWSrnOut of Whole Clothrnby Philip JenkinsrnSatan’s Silence: Ritual Abusernand the Making of a ModernrnAmerican Witch Huntrnby Debbie Nathan and Michael SnedekerrnNew York: Basic Books;rn317 pp., $25.00rnSatan’s Silence is critical for understandingrncurrent debates over issuesrnas diverse as feminism, the social positionrnof children, the growth of therapeuticrnvalues and beliefs, and the status ofrnAmerican civil liberties. This mightrnseem...

would be incredible were they not buttressedrnby irrefutable evidence.rnThe present book is exactly what onernmight expect from the collaboration of arnbrilliant lawyer and a courageous journalist,rnboth of them motivated by outragernat the atrocities inflicted on innocentrnpeople by crooked and/or derangedrntherapists and prosecutors and theirrncheerleaders from the unhappy alliancernof radical feminists and fundamentalists.rn(Why am I not...

ed in Forgotten Lessons. Unfortunatelyrnour best work on Flynn is an excellentrnbut long-neglected doctoral thesis,rnRichard Clark Frey, Jr.’s “John T. Flynnrnand the United States in Crisis, 1928-rn1950″ (University of Oregon, 1969), IfrnPavlik’s anthology can renew interest inrnthe entire corpus of Flynn’s work, we canrnunderstand an entire state of mind farrntoo neglected bv historians.rnJustus D. Doenecke...

OPINIONSrnThe Long Hellornby J.O. Tatern”Literature is news that stays news.”rn—Ezra PoundrnRaymond Chandler: Storiesrnand Early NovelsrnEdited by Frank MacShanernNew York: ‘The Library of America;rn1199 pp., $35.00rnRaymond Chandler: Later Novelsrnand Other WritingsrnEdited by Frank MacShanernNew York: The Library of America;rn1076pp.,$3S.OOrnSeeing Raymond Chandler publishedrnin series with Edgar Allan Poe andrnMark Twain and Flannery O’Connorrnmight give us pause. But...

REVIEWSrnFarmers andrnThinkersrnby Carin M. C. GreenrnThe Other Greeksrnby Victor Davis HansonrnNew York: The Free Press;rn541 pp., $28.00rnBetween the eighth and sixth centuriesrnB.C. there appeared the polis,rnthe Greek city-state, an elusive entityrnwhich nurtured and defined ideals stillrncentral to Western European views of allrnthat is “civilized.” How did the Greeks,rnup until then an unimportant and generallyrnpoor folk...

land and win, so they abandoned theirrncity and their land. They relied on theirrntriremes, warships rowed by any ablebodiedrnmale available—citizen, foreigner,rnpauper, even slave—and again,rnagainst all odds, they won. This battle,rnthough, lacked the essential moral quality.rnHanson does not explain, because herncan’t, just how a land battle fought byrnlandowners produces a citizen morallyrnsuperior to a sea battle...

Texas-styled right. Thomas Pauken’srnThe Thirty Years War is the politicalrnmemoir of a Texas-reared Catholie lad,rnlured to Georgetown University in 1961,rnwho trains in the political trenches of thernYoung Republican organization duringrnthe Goldwater years. Over the next threerndecades, Pauken becomes a pilgrim,rntaking part in or touching virtualh’ all ofrnthe significant political events of hisrntime. I Ic serves...

clear violations of international law, andrnthe aggressor should be punished. Tornthis end the United Nations, often led byrnthe United States, has imposed sanctionsrnon Serbia, maintained an arms embargo,rna no-fl- zone, and brought other formsrnof psychological pressure to bear. Inrnsome ways the situation is analogous tornthat of Iraq or Libya.rnThe second popular view is that thernconflict...