Briefly Noted 100
by VariousBenjamin Franklin, Jonathan Edwards, and the Representation of American Culture edited by barbara b. oberg and harry s. stout oxford university press, 230 pages, $35 Benjamin Franklin and Jonathan Edwards have frequently been studied as competing character types in American culture: with Franklin . . . . Continue Reading »
Immigration and the Aliens Among Us
by Richard John NeuhausThe Public Square Like many American Jews, Martin Peretz, editor in chief of The New Republic, had until now a deep inhibition about ever, ever visiting Germany. But he took the plunge and returns with some instructive observations about that country, and ours. Germans, he suggests, have almost gone . . . . Continue Reading »
A Smith for All Seasons
by Michael NovakAdam Smith in His Time and Ours: Designing the Decent Society by jerry z. muller free press, 272 pages, $22.95 A good work of intellectual history should exemplify two qualities above all: an imagination that allows the author to “pass over” into the horizon of his subject in order to see the . . . . Continue Reading »
Saving the World
by John P. SiskIn the Fall 1991 issue of New Perspectives Quarterly , which is very usefully devoted to the problems of unity and diversity in the contemporary world, Isaiah Berlin observes that the twentieth century is “the worst century that Europe has ever had.” Certainly there is widespread . . . . Continue Reading »
Attention Must Be Paid
by Edward T. OakesMulticulturalism and “The Politics of Recognition” an essay by charles taylor with commentary by amy gutmann (editor), steven c. rockefeller, michael walzer, and susan wolf princeton university press, 112 pages, $14.95 Last summer a man was arrested in Germany for walking down the street . . . . Continue Reading »
Homosexuality and the Moral Order
by Linda ChavezPresident Clinton’s decision to lift the ban against homosexuals in the military has opened a deep cultural divide in American public opinion that extends beyond the immediate issue to questions of morality, convention, and social order. Judging from the vituperation on the editorial pages and the . . . . Continue Reading »
Briefly Noted 94
by VariousFrom Synagogue to Church: Public Services and Offices in the Earliest Christian Communities by james tunstead burtchaell cambridge university press, 375 pages, $59.95 In the tired debate whether the priesthood is of the esse or the bene esse of the Church James Burtchaell offers a provocative . . . . Continue Reading »
After the Fall
by Carl GershmanIt is now well over three years since the fall of Communism in Eastern Europe. Scenes of Polish workers carrying Lech Walesa triumphantly on their shoulders, of students dancing on top of the Berlin Wall, and of throngs cheering Vaclav Havel in Wenceslas Square have been replaced by sickening images . . . . Continue Reading »
The Bible: Unexamined Commitments of Criticism
by Jon D. LevensonTen years ago I had an experience that made me vividly aware of the two worlds with which the practitioner of the critical study of the Bible inevitably deals. Reading applications for the doctoral program whose faculty I had only recently joined, I was struck by the frequency on the . . . . Continue Reading »
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