Courage in Profilenby Paul GottfriednForbidden Ground:nThe Case Against EmploymentnDiscrimination Lawsnby Richard A. EpsteinnCambridge: Harvard University Press;n544 pp., $39.95nLike Richard A. Epstein’s earliernbook Takings, dealing with the defensenof property in the Fifth Amendment,nhis latest one combines legalnstudy and economic analysis with megadosesnof political and social theory.nThough Epstein explores, for the mostnpart, civil rights legislation aimed at...

gold mine of arguments directed againstnthe would-be eliminators of job discrimination.nEpstein provides many reasonsnwhy discrimination in hiring is notnthe equivalent of racial slavery, or evennof segregation. He correctly observesnthat an employer’s preference for one labornpool over another does not leave thenless favored applicants without other jobnoptions. The same employers mightnlikely take their second-best choice asnmarginal...

Third World dictators such as SekounToure, Mengitsu, Macias, and the rulersnof Rwanda and Burundi whose massacresnfailed to elicit moral indignationnamong otherwise protest-prone moralizingnWesterners.nHe attacks with particular relishnWestern “third worldism,” and what hencalls selective antiracism (“the only truenracism … is white capitalist racism”)nand the variety of anti-Western attitudesnin the West that survived the collapsenand discreditation of...

The authors’ basic thesis is this: thenrole of the Essenes, usually thought of asna pacifistie, celibate, monastic community,nhas been misunderstood and misinterpretednsince the days of the Jewishnhistorian turned Roman propagandist,nJosephus. hi reality they were both marriednand militant and were involved innthe great revolts against Rome. Jesusnhimself may not have been a militant,nbut he was a...

equivocally means a tree-martin. I oftennwatch the seemingly weightless boundingnof the faina from my bedroom window,nbut I would not like my heart to bentrampled by a doe! Milo de Angelis’s “ilnriso in bianco” (which as every Italiannchild knows means plain “boiled rice”)nbecomes Lawrence Venuti’s “laughter innwhite.” I wonder how this translatornwould render Dante’s “// dolce...

The Slaveholders’ Dilemma: Freedomnand Progress in Southern ConservativenThought, 1820-1860nby Eugene D. GenovesenColumbia: University of South CarolinanPress; 136 pp., $19.95nIn a recent and provocative essay, PaulnGottfried described Eugene D. Genovesenas a “hero of paleoconservative intellectuals.”nNo doubt this declarationnqualified as news in some circles, for thendistinguished historian of the AmericannSouth has always worked within thenMarxist tradition. Or...

The Dictator andnthe Scoundrelnby Alan J. LevinenThe Crisis Years: Kennedy andnKhrushchev, 1960-1963nby Michael R. BeschlossnNew York: HarperCollins;n816 pp., $29.95nTo anyone old enough to recall thenearly 1960’s, the names Kennedynand Khrushchev will provoke a wealthnof emotional associations far strongernthan those evoked by the names of mostnlater Presidents, or of the colorless charactersnwho followed Klimshchev as rulersnof...

he does tell us a lot about John F.nKennedy, and none of it very flattering.nFor there is precious little evidence ofnKennedy’s competence, much less excellence;nit is hard to find any indicationnof principles, much less idealism, in thenKennedy administration. Not to mincenwords, John F. Kennedy comes off innBeschloss’ account as a nincompoopnwith the morals of a...

animal rights theorists in the mid-70’s,nsanity in the animal protectionist communitynwent out the window, followingnimmediately upon the vanishing heelsnof philosophy itself. Nineteen seventyfivensaw the publication of Peter Singer’snAnimal Liberation: A New Ethics for OurnTreatment of Animals, which was rapidlynaccepted as the bible of the animalnrights movement and has sold hundredsnof thousands of copies. The creation...

. . . Only a little bored . . . “Younare the handsomest man in thenworld”—she says that; it is anmetaphor of a kind. She was collectingnherself, finding herself, innan inconsecutive way, among thenconsecutions of our invention ofnour sexual tone back and forth,nand in the faith that in the sequencenof moments somethingnmight happen and all...

Rising Sunnby Michael CrichtonnNew York: Alfred A. Knopf;n355 pp., $22.00nThe Japan That Can Say No: WhynJapan Will Be First Among Equalsnby Shintaro IshiharanNew York: Simon and Schuster;n158 pp., $10.00nAmerica Asleep: The Free TradenSyndrome and the GlobalnEconomic ChallengenEdited by John P. Cregan,nForeword by Patrick BuchanannWashington, D.C.: The United StatesnIndustrial Council EducationalnFoundation; 201 pp., $8.95nAs a gorgeous...

Peaceful Invasions: Immigrationnand Changing Americanby Leon F. BouviernWashington, D.C.: Center for ImmigrationnStudies; 234 pp., $45.00n•••nThe Bourgeois Age is finished, but anprincipal feature of Victorianism—nthe fullest and most developed expressionnof that era—still flourishes. Postmodernsnconsider themselves a hardheaded andn. realistic people, yet the average Americanntoday is probably as much a sentimentalistnas the typical Dickens reader of a...

From a Front Boxnby James W. TuttletonnHenry Adams: Selected LettersnEdited by Ernest SamuelsnCambridge: Harvard University Press;n612 pp., $29.95nOnly the most devoted students ofnHenry Adams are likely to havenbought and read the six-volume CompletenLetters that Harvard University Press producednbetween 1982 and 1988. More’snthe pity, since it was an excellent work ofnscholarship disclosing an American epistolarynartist of...

nounced attachment to marriednwomen; so as to preclude any attachmentnthat could cause a rumornor other ties. It would benuseless and impossible to arguenthe matter, or to give reasons fornpreferring solitude soul to solitudena deux; but the reasons are sufficientlynstrong, and if I ever shouldnact in a contrary sense, it wouldnbe because I should have begun...

Billings’ move, therefore, from the WestnCoast and law to the East Coast and railroadsnwas not a radical new departure. AsnWinks observes, “What Billings knew bestnwas land law,” and “railroad companiesnwere, in fact, land companies.” Addressingnthe standard question about the businessngiants of the Gilded Age—were theyn”Robber Barons” or “Industrial Statesmen”?—Winks’nanswer for the railroadnbuilders is a little...

extent created modern American popnculture.”Even in the supreme blacknachievement of jazz . . , Jewish musicians—Goodman,nGershwin, Mezzrow,nand Whiteman among others—not onlynplayed the music, but also served as criticsnand interpreters. In a racially controllednprewar America, it was the Jew whonpopularized black life, transforming anfolk tradition into an art mode.” Blacks,nwho “saw their uniqueness compromised”nby this cultural...

pared in the end to be defeated and brokennup by life, which is the inevitable pricenof fastening one’s love upon other individuals.”nThis, as Samuel Hynes hasnpointed out, is a good description of whatnOrwell himself did as a member of welteringnhumanity and not as a saint, whichnhe was not.nAt the same time this remarkable passagenreveals why...

Culture Wars: The Struggle tonDefine Americanby James Davison HunternNew York: Basic Books;n416 pp., $25.00nThe De-Valuing of America:nThe Fight for Our Culture andnOur Childrennby William ]. BennettnNew York: Summit Books;n271 pp., $20.00nThe Disuniting of America:nReflections on anMulticultural Societynby Arthur M. Schlesinger, jr.nNew York: W.W. Norton;n160 pp., $14.95nWhile the state of American—innfact of Western—society todaynis probably unique...

The Prophetic Voice of Donald DavidsonnRegionalism and Nationalism innthe United States: The Attacknon Leviathannby Donald DavidsonnIntroduction by Russell KirknNew Brunswick, New JerseynTransaction Books;n368 pp., $19.95nN o idea is more central to the Americannpolitical tradition than that ofnlimited government. As a nation wenbegan with our commitment to the libertynof commonwealths, of communities,nand of citizens. When we...

Playing Possumnby Arnold BeichmannThe Coming Order: Reflections onnSovietology and the Medianby Andrei NavrozovnLondon: The Claridge Press;n59 pp., £3.99nM r. Navrozov is a serious man andnhis poHtical concerns, no matternhow improbable they may appear, mustnbe taken seriously. He believes, first, whatnhas been happening in the Soviet Unionnsince March 1985, namely its visiblendecomposition, is a KGB disinformationnachievement,...

against himself with consequencesnunforeseen by the conspirators. VladimirnBukovsky has written: “Many in Moscownbelieve that Gorbachev was much morenactively involved in the so-called coup,nif not the mastermind behind it. Asnquite a few cynics would point out, henhad very good reasons to want his immediatensubordinates to stage a ‘coup.'”nTalk about another coup is still heard innMoscow.nRussian television...

{•nflourishing. More specifically, as anCatholic, Weigel is too eager to fit in withnAmerica, and to make Catholic theologynseem as unthreatening as possible tonthe “American way.” Catholics are callednto do all things soli Deo gloria. If by happyncoincidence that is also to do good fornthe country, then so much the better.nBut there is no Catholic mandate...

Rather, “Prudence favored reform beforenrevolution.”nStanlis’s chapters on “Burke and thenRevolution of the Enlightenment” andn”Burke and the Sensibility of Rousseau”nconstitute not only a tour de force ofnscholarship, but they serve as a critiquenof modernity. The chapter on thenEnlightenment serves to explain Burke’snapparent skepticism towards reason as anskepticism towards “discursive rationalism”nand “speculative ideology”—ntowards what Maritain regarded as...

of the Church of England, in particularnDean Inge and Bishop Barnes of Birmingham,nthe latter an oddity who advocatedn”race hygiene” and speculated thatnSt. Francis owed his stigmata to scratchingninstead of washing. There are alsoncontributions by specialists on theologicalnmodernism. Emile Poulat writesnon “The Catholic Church in the ModernistnRevolution,” and Gabriel Daly onn”Apologetics in the Modernist CulturalnContext.” From...

OPINIONSnAn Empirical Jean-Jacques RousseaunThe Noble Savage: Jean-JacquesnRousseau, 1754-1762nby Maurice CranstonnChicago: University of Chicago Press;n599 pp., $29.95nEver since Frederika MacDonaldnpublished her massive two-volumenwork, Jean-Jacques Rousseau: A NewnStudy in Criticism (1905), scholarsnfavorably disposed toward Rousseaunhave pursued the difficult task of rehabilitatingnhim from the “audacious historicalnfraud” perpetuated by Frederic-nMelchior Grimm, Denis Diderot, andnMme. d’Epinay. On the authority ofnGrimm’s...

Faith of Our Fathersnby Marion Montgomeryn”What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thounvisitest him? For thou hast made him a httle lower than the angels, and hastncrowned him with glory and honor.”n— Psalm 8:4-5nA Government of Laws: PoliticalnTheory, Religion, and thenAmerican Foundingnby Ellis SandoznBaton Rouge: Louisiana StatenUniversity...

A Very PrivatenPersonnby Brad LinaweavernThe State of the Union: Essays innSocial Criticismnby Albert Jay NocknEdited and with a Foreword bynCharles H. HamiltonnIndianapolis: Liberty Press;n340 pp., $20.00nWhen Albert Jay Nock died inn1945, American civilization hadnknown saner times. Having just conquerednthe worid through the FinalnDeal of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, thennew colossus had a growing appetite,nundaunted -by expanse...

they never address the issues he raised.nToday’s spokesmen for both the leftnand the right have a vested interest innkeeping Nock out of the public eye.nThere is a modest attempt under waynto resuscitate the Old Right with anstrong emphasis on a libertarian viewnof foreign policy. This effort is certainlynworthwhile, not least because itnannoys the managerial elite,...

on earth. Leftism castigates Westernnimperialism for having destroyed whatnit sees as viable alternatives to Westernncivilization, though a longer view ofnhistory reveals that what leftists hatenmost about America (“the myth ofncompetition and the glory and excitementnof victory,” in Richard Barnett’snwords) is common to all successfulnsocieties since the dawn of time, part ofna pattern that characterizes the...

tachment to civil rights, his desire tonend, as he put it, “this God-damnndiscrimination against Negroes” —nwhere are the signs and symptoms of itnprior to November 22, 1963? How tonaccount for Johnson’s anti-civil rightsnrecord in Texas politics, as detailed bynRobert Caro? Where, in his senatorialncareer, are the hints that between thosenoutsized ears lay the mind and...

other social science, while novelists andnpoets appear as more cunningly unscrupulousnversions of ourselves, usingntheir gifts for the same grubby vanitiesnas the rest of us.” Professor Frommndoes not point out strongly enoughnthat the logical result of this “academicncapitalism” is the ever-greater irrelevancenof the university to the generalnculture, and the loss to the humanitiesnof a generation and...

The Rise of Selfishness in Americanby James Lincoln ColliernNew York: Oxford University Press;n320 pp., $24.95nJames Lincoln Collier is the descendantnof well-to-do New Englanders,nmill-owners “who lived in a grandnhouse on a hill, overlooking a rownof . . . the cottages of the- workersn[they] . . . employed.” Nevertheless,nhis new book—which could as well bencalled The Rise...

Getting Back to Naturenby Kenneth Craycraftn”Human rights are Hctions—but fictions with highly specific properties.”n— Alasdair MaclntyrenRights Talk: The Impoverishmentnof PoHtical Discoursenby Mary Ann GlendonnNew York: Free Press;n218 pp., $22.95nIn 1960 John Courtney Murray, S.J.,nwarned of the possibility that Americanwas slipping into a new barbarism. Innhis best known work, We Hold ThesenTruths, Father Murray said that...

A ForgottennDocumentnby Clyde WilsonnThe Confederate Constitution ofn1861: An Inquiry into AmericannConstitutionalismnby Marshall L. DeRosanColumbia, Missouri: University ofnMissouri Press; 182 pp., $32.50nAfew months after the close of thenAmerican Civil War there was anbrief but intense and interesting correspondencenbetween Lord Acton, thenEuropean historian of liberty, and GeneralnR.E. Lee, hero of the defeatednConfederacy, on the issues of the...

on the degree to which the Congressncould exceed the President’s spendingnrecommendations, and Cabinet Secretariesnhad seats on the floors of Congress,nto enhance the process of deliberationnbeyond the exchange of formalnmessages, with the intent of increasingneconomy and accountability in. thenpublic business.nSo far as the judiciary was concerned,n.the Confederate Constitutionnreflected the pure JefFersonian principlesnof the early Republic. The...

love — so out of touch with realnlove that it even defines then”right to privacy” as the licensento insert a suction tube . . . intonthe mother’s womb to kill anbaby, now claims only it cannprovide the covering for thisnvulnerable child. At the samentime, the State offers nonprotection and support to thenfamily’s claim to privacy...

family, society, and friends and undernthe influence of the great John HenrynNewman; of his even more extremendecision to join the Society of Jesus, innwhich eventually, after a long period ofnstudy and probation, he was ordainednand in which he served all his life; andnof those various posts where this dedicatednpriest preached and taught. In thencourse of...

The Polymorphnby Gregory McNarneenMore Shapes Than Onenby Fred ChappellnNew York: St. Martin’s Press;n179 pp., $17.95nOver the last three decades FrednChappell has been steadily accumulatingnboth an enviable publishingnrecord — he has some twenty novelsnand collections of poems and stories tonhis credit—and a well-deserved reputationnas one of the South’s foremostnmen of letters. His latest book of shortnfictions,...

The Siege of Baltimorenby Chilton Williamson, Jr.n”Newspapers have degenerated, they may now be absolutely relied upon.”n— Oscar WildenThe Impossible H.L. Mencken:nA Selection of His BestnNewspaper StoriesnEdited by Marion Elizabeth RodgersnWith a foreword by Gore VidalnNew York: Anchor/Doubleday;n707 pp., $27.50nIt is 36 years since the gaseous incorporealnsoul of Henry Louis Mencken,nsummoned before the throne ofnHim in...

Truth in Empirenby E. Christian KopffnCaligula: The Corruption of Powernby Anthony A. BarrettnNew Haven and London: YalenUniversity Press; 334 pp., $27.50nClaudiusnby Barbara LevicknNew Haven and London: YalenUniversity Press; 256 pp., $25.00nNero: The End of a Dynastynby Miriam T. GriffinnNew Haven and London: YalenUniversity Press; 320 pp., $25.00nHe arrived at the highest seat ofnpower late in...

attempt to restore it against all odds, orntolerate the new monarchs — Presidents,nwe call them — as long as theynprotect our children and our propertynfrom the worst ravages of the Americannupper class? It is a question that Tacitusnasked, and one illumined not so muchnby modern bibliography as by the silentnpondering of our unquiet hearts.nE. Christian...

excoriating the more popular aspects ofnculture. In his analysis of BAD magazines,nfor instance, Mr. Fussell is rightlynharsh in his view toward such publicationsnas Connoisseur and ArchitecturalnDigest. But what about the pretensionsnand unreadability of various intellectualnjournals? If BAD has a home, it mostnsurely is found in a great deal of thennonsense that passes for literary andncultural...

Miller’s Talesnby Gregory McNameenThe Happiest Man Alivenby Mary V. DearbornnNew York: Simon & Schuster;n368 pp., $24.95nHenry Miller: A Lifenby Robert FergusonnNew York: W.W. Norton;n397 pp., $24.95nThroughout his long life, HenrynMiller (1891-1980) wrote a handfulnof good books, among them ThenAir-Conditioned Nightmare (1945), innwhich the prodigal son and narratornreturns from self-imposed exile innFrance to tour his native...

OPINIONSnMagna Mater, Full of Grace!nby Chilton Williamson, Jr.n”Nature, which is the time-vesture of God and reveals Him to the wise, hidesnHim from the fooUsh.”n— Thomas CarlylenThe Idea of Wilderness: FromnPrehistory to the Age of Ecologynby Max OelschlaegernNew Haven: Yale University Press;n488 pp., $29.95nThe River of the Mother ofnGod and Other Essaysnby Aldo LeopoldnEdited by Susan...

The Spirit of the Agenby Matthew Scullyn”Money is human happiness in the abstract; he who can no longer enjoynhappiness in the concrete devotes himself entirely to money.”n— SchopenhauernImperial Masquerade: Essays bynLewis H. Laphamnby Lewis H. LaphamnNew York: Grove Weidenfeld;n397 pp., $22.50nThe Lewis Lapham story, as recountednin his earlier books, Fortune’snChild and Money and Class innAmerica,...

PrimalnExistentialismnby James HitchcocknAfter Ideology: Recovering thenSpiritual Foundationsnof Freedomnby David WalshnSan Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco;n296 pp., $29.95nThis is an important and optimisticnbook, and the fact that it has beennpublished by a major secular publishingnhouse perhaps bears out the author’snthesis that Western culture is ripe for anmajor spiritual revival.nOn one level, After Ideology is anothernstatement of the now familiarn”bankruptcy...

Philosophy in annOld Keynby E. Christian KopffnA Parliament of Souls: Limits andnRenewals, Volume IInby Stephen R.L. ClarknOxford: Oxford University Press;n208 pp., $49.95nIn the ancient world no one could talknor read too much about philosophy.nWealthy Athenian nobles, Plato andnXenophon, for instance — even Romannemperors, like Marcus Aurelius — livednfor the hours they could devote tonphilosophical discourse....

What future awaits a society whosenintellectual leaders have forgotten theirnHopkins and Kipling, their Plato andnPlotinus? We can banish great thinkersnfrom college curricula, but before longnKipling’s Gods of the CopybooknHeadings with fire and sword willnreturn.nE. Christian Kopff teaches Greek andnLatin at the University of Colorado innBoulder.nSpeaking of JFKnby William MurchisonnA Question of Character: A Lifenof John...

from close relationships, from deeplynheld principles, from, in Reeves’ words,n”a moral center, a reference point thatnwent beyond self-aggrandizement.”nNo plaster saint was John F. Kennedy.nThe wonder maybe is that thennation fared no worse than it did undernhis stewardship. The Kennedy years,npresided over by a waif with the sexualnappetite of a goat, demonstrate inadvertentlynthe great tensile strength...

ter’s essays and doctoral theses will benfocused. Fred Hobson has chosen thisnforum and form to make sense of thencutting edge of Southern literature as itnis being created, in a work that isnmostly a pleasure and an edification.nJ.O. Tate is a professor of English atnDowling College on Long Island.nFortress Mentalitiesnby Gregory McNameenMilitary Bratsnby Mary Edwards WertschnNew...