The Mirror and the Light by hilary mantel henry holt, 784 pages, $30 The arrival of this final installment of the Thomas Cromwell trilogy, penned by “one of our most important living writers,” has precipitated an avalanche of adulation for its author and her great work, already decorated with . . . . Continue Reading »
Since plague time began, I’ve found the following books reassuring, challenging, illuminating, and in some cases just plain fun. Continue Reading »
Iconoclasts seek to assault the sensibilities of those they oppose, and utterly destroy all physical evidence that such views ever existed. Continue Reading »
Today’s iconoclasm fails to uphold any permanent ideals against which the past or the present might rightly be judged. Continue Reading »
Capitalism gets off easy these days. Its loud but underwhelming critics are stuck in the 1960s, repeating slogans that never quite amount to a compelling condemnation of the system. Proposing costly federal programs is all it takes to be considered an anti-capitalist radical. Take, for instance, . . . . Continue Reading »
In June 1970, America’s first gay pride parades hit the streets. Four U.S. cities—New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and San Francisco—hosted crowds ranging from several hundred to a few thousand marching with homemade signs declaring “pride,” “power,” and “liberation.” Like . . . . 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 »
So-and-so slept here, a date, a listof battles fought—whatever they’re about,he reads them all, not just to get the gistbut top to bottom, loudly, calling outexcitedly, listen to this, you guys,to share with them this knowledge on display,this one cool fact. The kids all roll their . . . . Continue Reading »
In the midst of a Haydn concert in London in June 1794, the young Clemens von Metternich spotted his one-time teacher, Andreas Hofmann, in the audience. Rather than renewing old acquaintance, the future Prince of Diplomats immediately denounced Hofmann to the authorities as a dangerous subversive. . . . . Continue Reading »
Oenoanda was an ancient town of modest size and middling prosperity, perched on the rugged hills above the River Xanthus in Lycia, now southwestern Turkey. It was here, sometime around the reign of Hadrian (a.d. 117–38), that a citizen named Diogenes erected a portico destined to bear one of the . . . . Continue Reading »
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