In her now classic If I am not for Myself, Ruth Wisse argues that Jewish identification with liberalism no longer makes historical sense and today it is liberalism which presides over the destruction of Israel and the Jews.
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The "liberal solution" to America's conflict with the Islamic world, Dinesh D'Souza argues, is doomed from the outset because it imagines that American political values may be absolutely abstracted from its cultural values. Most Americans, according to D'Souza, have cultural beliefs that give them much more in common with the "family values" of Islamic culture, [...] Baldwin's main point is that the time (let alone expense) it takes to legally secure the right to see your child destroys a father's relationship with his children almost as thoroughly as the manipulations of a hostile ex-spouse. [...] In their lengthy book The New Spirit of Capitalism, French sociologist Luc Boltanski and Eve Chiapello attempt to explain why the concept of social class has declined both in intellectual life and as a characteristic of social organization in French society. According to Boltanski and Chiapello, the 68ers' ideology of "autonomy" and its corollary, the [...] For Christopher Hitchens, the Left has degenerated into a self-interested faction, no longer interested in the poor of all color (and sexual persuasion), and absorbed by spokespersons of diversity who seek to advance middle class constituencies of color (or sexual preference). A review of Christopher Hitchens and His Critics. [...] Richard Nixon and the Rise of Affirmative Action: The Pursuit of Racial Equality in an Era of LimitsA credible argument can be made that Richard Nixon's implementation of affirmative action undermined the American tradition of liberal individualism, transformed the individual citizen into a member of a race or ethnic group, and gave birth to our modern racial identity politics. A review of Kevin Yuill's Richard Nixon and the Rise of Affirmative Action. [...] This move towards authoritarianism, Paul Belien argues in his book, has been the most significant achievement of Belgium’s ruling Saxe-Coberg family. It is also why Belgium, a state in which private interests have historically superseded those of the public, is admired by the unelected bureaucrats who will control the looming European superstate.
In his recent book, Tomislav Sunic aims to use popular dissatisfaction with contemporary excesses on issues of race as an excuse for attacking the idea of liberal democracy itself. A review of Homo Americanus. [...] Mike Nifong has become a convenient scapegoat for avoiding the real lessons of the Duke debacle: abuse of procedure and the cost of justice in America. A review of It’s Not About the Truth. [...] Mark Kurlansky's book on the 1960s is rich in detail but in the end is more commemoration than history. A review of 1968: The Year that Rocked the World. [...] In his latest book, Walter Benn Michaels describes how embracing “diversity” and identity politics has become a socially acceptable way of becoming more wealthy. A review of The Trouble With Diversity. [...] In his book We Were One, Patrick K. O'Donnell helps transform the debate on Iraq from a survey of whether or not non-democratic nations approve of America bringing democracy to Iraq — to one involving our neighbors, families, sons and daughters. [...] How is it that Western power is so easily projected upon those it purportedly admires? What is the mechanism behind this cultural imperialism? A review of Roger Sandall's The Culture Cult: Designer Tribalism and Other Essays and Gita Meta's Karma Cola: Marketing the Mystic East. [...] After a decade of jousting with racist “shades,” campus multiculturalists now have a corporeal enemy: feminists. A review of Phyllis Chesler's recent book, The Death of Feminism. [...] In his recent book, David L. Schalk proposes to examine the role French and American intellectuals played during the Algerian and Vietnam wars, paying scant attention to the details of their engagement or the consequences of their writing. [...] In his new book, Ilya Gaiduk reveals that the Soviet Union put little pressure on North Vietnam to negotiate; in short, America’s diplomatic efforts to involve the USSR in finding a solution to the Vietnam war were a waste of time. A review of The Soviet Union and the Vietnam War. [...] Christie Davies’ new book explores in great depth the hideous contradiction between the ideals of the particular individual and the betrayal of individualism by the causalist state, which nevertheless conceals itself in the rhetoric of ethical individualism. [...] Most scholarship on Vietnam has focused on American hubris and defeat, ignoring the role of the South Vietnamese armed services while overemphasizing the role of the North Vietnamese desire to unify their country. Recently, Vietnam Veterans are beginning to challenge this narrow view with their own written accounts of the Vietnam war. [...] The Myth of U.S. Defeat in Vietnam's significance lies in re-exposing academia's unwillingness to even entertain the possibility of U.S. victory in South Vietnam. The questions Walton poses aren't original — not because they have been resolved, but because they have been “silenced” by being ignored. [...] Never has a war inspired the imagination (lurid and otherwise) of so many Americans, and yet the lives of the actual soldiers interested so few. A review of B.G. Burkett and Glenna Whitley's Stolen Valor and Gerald Nicosia's Home to War. [...] This book tells the story of every American POW in Indochina, detailing everything from the torture they endured to their communication of tapping and methods of resistance. [...] From the outset, Abrams understands that his main opponent is neither the VC nor the NVA, but the U.S. media. His struggles will be less in securing hamlets, than conveying the significance of this to the American public. There is less information on pacification in Sorley’s 900 pages, than on countering the misrepresentations of the [...] In his book M.I.A. or Mythmaking in America, H. Bruce Franklin attempts to establish that the POW "myth" was created by the Nixon White House in order to extend the Vietnam War. His first speculations about potentially unaccounted for servicemen suggest that they may have been deserters who formed new families, got involved with drug [...] The Vietnam war will not be over until less attention is given to resurrecting the ghosts of the past, and more to those who solider on and carry the very real burdens of America’s South East Asian war. [...] The Library of America's Reporting Vietnam is a significant historical achievement. But reading these essays as an historian, it is evident that characterizing them broadly as simply "optimistic" or "pessimistic" prevents their historical specificity from being appreciated. [...] |
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