I am struck by the everyday misery and uncertainty and sheer muddle that George Orwell endured, along with his quotidian joys and satisfactions; particularly when juxtaposed with today's handwringing. Continue Reading »
Even after Orwell explicitly diverged from some of Chesterton’s views in the 1930s, under the influence of socialist ideas and hopes, Chesterton’s assumptions and political and ethical conceptions continued to shape him. Continue Reading »
In the opening lines of Cold Warriors, Duncan White notes that “between February and May 1955, a group covertly funded by the Central Intelligence Agency launched a secret weapon into Communist territory”: balloons carrying copies of George Orwell’s Animal Farm. This was perhaps the . . . . Continue Reading »
The Republic of Virtue: How We Tried to Ban Corruption, Failed, and What We Can Do About It by f. h. buckley encounter, 296 pages, $25.99 Something is rotten in the states of America. F. H. Buckley, law professor at George Mason University, believes patronage networks and crony capitalism . . . . Continue Reading »
2084: The End of the World by boualem sansal translated by alison anderson europa editions, 240 pages, $17 Sleep soundly, good people, everything is sheer falsehood, and the rest is under control.” So begins Boualem Sansal’s new novel, 2084. The author, an Algerian secularist, has . . . . Continue Reading »
This is among the hardest things for us to accept—that at best each of us, whether we’re reporting on an event or contemplating metaphysical matters, has only a partial knowledge of the truth. Continue Reading »
I n 1954, four years after George Orwell’s premature death from tuberculosis, his friend Christopher Hollis recalled: “One of the most interesting and deepest of Orwell’s beliefs was his belief in the profound evil of contraception.” Near the end of his life, Orwell expressed the view that . . . . Continue Reading »
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