James Nuechterlein

Peter Berger, who died on June 27 at age eighty-eight, ranked among the most distinguished sociological thinkers and public intellectuals of the past half century. His contributions to his discipline were impressively varied: the sociology of knowledge, the sociology of religion, sociological . . . . Continue Reading »

Redeemer: The Life of Jimmy Carter? by randall balmer? basic, 304 pages, $27.99 Historians generally agree that the best that can be said for the presidency of Jimmy Carter is that it was a mixed bag. The common (and I think correct) view is that the one-term Carter administration, unfocused in . . . . Continue Reading »

Sword of the Spirit, Shield of Faith: Religion in American War and Diplomacy by Andrew Preston Knopf, 832 pages, $37.50 America, G. K. Chesterton famously observed, is “a nation with the soul of a church.” In his masterful new survey Sword of the Spirit, Shield of Faith , Cambridge historian . . . . Continue Reading »

American Dreamers: How the Left Changed a Nation ? by Michael Kazin Knopf, 329 pages, $27.95 Radical historians are notoriously untrustworthy analysts of the American experience because their ideological commitments so often distort their critical assessments. Frustrated by the disconnect between . . . . Continue Reading »

Everyone thinks ideologically, but no one wants to admit it. Most of our responses to events in public life are immediate, firm, and quite untouched by reflection. When I react to a particular political development with enthusiasm or dismay, or to someone’s political judgment with Yes, that is . . . . Continue Reading »

Inequality is, always and everywhere, a fact of economic life. It is also, always and everywhere, a recurring subject of moral controversy. Americans have for the most part avoided preoccupation with the topic”they have generally worried more about equality of opportunity than of . . . . Continue Reading »

This issue marks the beginning of First Things ’ twenty-second year of publication, and every new publishing cycle invites reflection on what it is that we are about. And to think about First Things is to think, inevitably, about its founding editor, Richard John Neuhaus. I’ve been . . . . Continue Reading »

Americans like to think of their history as a success story. And so, by most measures, and for most people most of the time, it has been. Except, of course, for the matter of race. That issue has cursed the nation from the beginning, and we have never gotten it right, or even close to right. It is . . . . Continue Reading »

Americans have always been an intensely patriotic people. Most of them love their country without reserve and without need for reflection. Devotion to the nation and its symbols is a cultural given, one that politicians ignore at risk of prompt return to private life. Our national parties stage a . . . . Continue Reading »

A habit of pessimism, it seems, comes with the conservative territory. It’s been more than half a century since Clinton Rossiter described American conservatism as the “thankless persuasion,” but the label seems as appropriate now, at least in indicating a prevailing mood, as it did when . . . . Continue Reading »