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Poland: Reflections on a New World

For a national capital, Warsaw is very new and, finally, unconvincing as a city. After World War II, it was rebuilt from almost total rubble. Apart from the reconstructed Old Town, it is with some exceptions an exhibition of ugliness. The Communists, it seems, were at war with all three . . . . Continue Reading »

The Big Lie Continued

Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memoryby deborah lipstadt free press, 278 pages, $22.95  Assassins of the Memory: Essays on the Denial of the Holocaust by pierre vidal-naquet, translated by jeffery mehlman columbia university press, 205 pages, $27.50Ever since the end of . . . . Continue Reading »

We Are Many

A People Divided: Judaism in Contemporary America by jack wertheimer basic books, 267 pages, $25 The slogan of the United Jewish Appeal, the most successful of all of America’s philanthropies in terms of fund-raising, is “We Are One.” The UJA’s success is due to the deep emotional ties of . . . . Continue Reading »

Anti-Antiliberalism

The Anatomy of Antiliberalismby stephen holmes harvard university press, 330 pages, $29.95 As the 1990s bring us the recrudescence of many unfulfilled progressive enthusiasms from the 1970s, we may begin to understand that the intervening Reagan decade was indeed an exceptional period of . . . . Continue Reading »

A President in Process

It turns out, in retrospect, to have been a most ironically timed meeting. The White House Communications Office had arranged for nine representatives of the religious press—nicely balanced as to denomination and theological inclination—to meet with the President on December 17. That . . . . Continue Reading »

The Liberalism That We Need

There is liberalism, and then there is liberalism. We in the post-Communist societies of Central and Eastern Europe, and especially we in Poland, do not have an easy time sorting out the varieties of liberalism that are being proposed to us. . . . . Continue Reading »

A Peculiar Little Test

Every two or three years, at a small, elite New England university, I offer a graduate-level course on “Nature Writing.” The students, as you might guess, exhibit a keen interest in birds, blossoms, bugs, and bears. Despite shared tastes, the composition of the class is impressively diverse, a . . . . Continue Reading »

Woodstock Comes to Washington

If any further proof were needed that the Woodstock generation has taken over the federal government, President Clinton’s “AIDS Czar,” Kristine Gebbie, gave a speech a few months ago at a conference on teen pregnancy that should put the matter to rest. (Her office attempted to rewrite the . . . . Continue Reading »

Population Policy: Ideology as Science

In recent years the poorer regions of the earth have been swept by a “population revolution” which, though it has attracted comparatively little attention, is nevertheless both unprecedented and pregnant with consequences for the peoples of the countries affected. This “revolution” has been . . . . Continue Reading »

Communal Foundations

The Idea of Civil Society by adam seligman free press, 220 pages, $24.95 Adam Seligman’s book, while primarily a theoretical, historical, and social inquiry into the notion of civil society, is motivated by a contemporary concern: namely, the felt need for a new representation of society in . . . . Continue Reading »

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