Trinket shops at roadside tourist spots used to sell items like shellacked coasters cut from cross sections of white pine or birch logs, or faux-bark mottoes inscribed with uplifting sentiments, or bawdy farmyard postcards. That sort of thing. Perhaps they still do. Among the trinkets, one could always find the three monkeys telling … Read more
Alexis de Tocqueville was born—and died—a Catholic. He lost his faith as an adolescent, but it had already broadened and enlightened him (indeed, his childhood tutor was a beloved priest) and made him the brilliant political observer he would become. Tocqueville was an aristocrat from a family that had stood by the Bourbons and … Read more
If you read reviews no further than the first paragraph, you need read only this: Buy this book, read it, keep it, set it as required reading for your children. Andrew Roberts has penned a splendid, episodic account of the triumph of the English-speaking peoples in the 20th century, charting not only their political and … Read more
Dinesh D’Souza knows controversy. The author of the bombshells Illiberal Education: The Politics of Race and Sex on Campus (Free Press, 1998), The End of Racism (Free Press, 1996), and What’s So Great About America (Penguin, 2003) — as well as a former editor of crisis — he is not afraid to stir things up. … Read more
Some months ago, my wife and I found ourselves watching a television program hosted by Ollie North. I am under the impression that he has a series on military affairs, or heroes, or something in that vein. In any event, on this evening he was interviewing King Michael of Romania. Â Unless they are as … Read more
How shall we speak of Mozart? We are always struck by his sprightly lyricism, of course, which offers us immeasurable delight but at the same time brings tears to our eyes—the tears that arrive when we find ourselves hailed with pure beauty. Grandeur, hilarity, bliss, poignancy, joy—what words suffice?  I was listening to Mozart … Read more
For the past three decades, I’ve been blessed to travel to almost every continent. But particularly, I have always felt a pull to visit Egypt and to see—with my own eyes—its ancient history and impressive ruins, and to visit the people who continue this 3,500-year-old civilization. My longing became a reality recently when I made … Read more
Tobacco is dirty weed. I like it. It satisfies no normal need. I like it. It makes you thin, it makes you lean, It takes the hair right off your bean, It’s the worst darn stuff I’ve ever seen. I like it. —Published in the Penn State Froth, 1915. The above poem, quoted by … Read more
The fraudulence of much that currently masquerades under the name “multiculturalism” results from gross perversions of what, in 1972, I called the new ethnicity. Multiculturalism is a profound betrayal of the fundamental principles of the new ethnicity. In the current culture wars on campus, however, an explicit indictment of the perversions of multiculturalism may be … Read more