Mourning the Russian Revolution

by William Doino Jr.

Why are so many inclined to sentimentalize the Russian Revolution, one of the most murderous chapters in human history? Continue Reading »

27 Feb 2017

The Typographical Reformation

by Timothy George

Protestantism was the first religious movement to take full advantage of the new powers of the press. Continue Reading »

20 Feb 2017

Yale’s Accidental Tribute to John C. Calhoun

by Leah Libresco Sargeant

John C. Calhoun, in being removed, was awarded an odd sort of honor: His ideas were treated as relevant and dangerous. Continue Reading »

17 Feb 2017

Ask Not: On Gifts and Debts

by Dale M. Coulter

Kennedy at his inauguration and medieval theologians agree: humans owe their existence to something beyond themselves, and they should live in light of that debt. Continue Reading »

7 Feb 2017

Remembering Kevin Starr, Catholic Historian

by Stephen Schwartz

For most of his career, Starr viewed the California experiment benevolently, as a phenomenon balanced between utopia and reason. But he was an intense Catholic believer who seems finally to have despaired of California’s grandiloquent and heartbreaking destiny. Continue Reading »

18 Jan 2017

Fake History

by George Weigel

Everyone has a right to their opinion about the state of Catholicism in 2017, but no one has a right to invent their own Church history. Continue Reading »

18 Jan 2017

Secular Pilgrims in America

by Raphael Magarik

Atheists have long been a vocal minority in America, their relations with the dominant Protestant culture defined by consistent, unresolved antagonism, unexpected ideological affinities and interdependencies, and the back-and-forth movement of individuals between atheism and belief. Continue Reading »

12 Jan 2017

City of Conquest and Crossroads

by Jane Sloan Peters

Istanbul is a history of the people who lived in and around the city walls. Madden’s narrative is driven by conquests and construction. It is punctuated by earthquakes, fires, and plagues, and shot through with religious fervor and political intrigue. Continue Reading »

10 Jan 2017

Franciscan Churchmanship

by George Weigel

When Kenneth Clark devoted an episode to the Middle Ages in his magisterial BBC series, Civilisation, he celebrated the chivalry, courtesy, and romance of the French and Burgundian courts—the Gothic world of “imaginative fancy” that coexisted with a “sharp sense of reality.” Clark no doubt . . . . Continue Reading »

1 Jan 2017

Kingdom of Language

by Peter J. Leithart

Despite its title, Tom Wolfe’s The Kingdom of Speech isn’t mainly about language. It’s about evolution, feckless intellectuals, and leftist politics. Continue Reading »

30 Dec 2016