Beginning with the Supreme Court’s Webster decision of last July, Americans were delighted, distressed, or simply puzzled to discover that abortion was back in the political arena. It had been abruptly “removed from politics” by the Roe v. Wade decision of 1973, when it became a question . . . . Continue Reading »
Rites of Spring: The Great War and the Birth of the Modern Ageby modris ecksteinshoughton mifflin (a peter davison book), 396 pages, $24.95 Modris Eksteins’ disturbing and fascinating book ranges between the Sergei Diaghilev-managed opening night performance of Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring . . . . Continue Reading »
In Pursuit: Of Happiness and Good Governmentby charles murraysimon and schuster, 341 pages, $19.95 In January of 1964 President Lyndon Johnson's Council of Economic Advisers helped launch the War on Poverty by including in its annual report a chapter on “The Problem of Poverty in America.” . . . . Continue Reading »
The decade of the 1980s has proved to be an ideological watershed. It has been marked by a huge resurgence of the power and efficacy of the capitalist market system and a corresponding collapse of confidence in the capacity of socialist “command economies.” This loss of confidence in . . . . Continue Reading »
In his famous Postscript to The Constitution of Liberty, Friedrich von Hayek identified Thomas Aquinas as “the first Whig,” and has several times since noted how important it is to distinguish the Whig tradition from that of many exponents of the classical liberal tradition. Among . . . . Continue Reading »
Setting the Agenda (Editors’ note: In order to inaugurate our correspondence section, we asked a number of people to respond briefly to the following question: “What are the most important issues in religion and public life that First Things should address, and what advice would you give us for . . . . Continue Reading »
The 1980s may well be looked back upon as a decade of intellectual reformation in the so-called North-South debate. A burst of revisionist thinking has affected recent discussions of Third World economic development and may offer a harbinger of better policies vis-a-vis the world’s poor. There . . . . Continue Reading »
Arthur Schlesinger Jr.’s widely noticed essay in the New York Times Book Review last summer, “The Opening of the American Mind,” illustrates among other things the truth of the old adage, les extremes . . . . Continue Reading »
A number of commentators— among them David Hollenbach, John Langan, and myself—have argued that the American Catholic Bishops' pastoral letters, and even the Pope's recent encyclicals, represent in some important ways a rapprochement with liberal ideas and . . . . Continue Reading »
Catholicism and the Renewal of American Democracy by george weigel paulist press, 218 pages, $11.95 Forty years ago, Evelyn Waugh wrote a piece for Life magazine entitled “The American Epoch in the Catholic Church.” In a manner only mildly condescending and with controlled admiration . . . . Continue Reading »
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