Tag Archives: History

JK Galbraith is exceptionally unwise for a brilliant old man, as demonstrated in this excerpt from his latest book, The Economics of Innocent Fraud : Truth For Our Time: We cherish the progress in civilisation since biblical times and long before. But there is a needed and, indeed, accepted qualification. …

The most interesting aspect of the turmoil that has beset the broadcast media, its corporate masters, the FCC, and the public in the wake of the Janet Jackson Super Bowl slip has been the philosophical arguments either for or against media content regulation. Many have taken an absolute or near-absolute …

Clinton book "campaign" begins

I voted for Bill Clinton twice and was happy to do so – he did a lot of things right (NAFTA, welfare reform, race relations) and was lucky as well (the economy). As we all know, it is better to be lucky than to be good. But by the time …

The current struggle in Iraq proves that we can only successfully work from a position of strength. Due to our weak response to terror prior to 9/11, our enemies concluded that we are decadent and weak, care only for our own comfort, and – especially with our behavior in Somalia …

Ian Buruma, who with his writing partner Avishai Margalit, has been advancing a theory of “Occidentalism” as a counterpart to Said’s “Orientalism” since 9/11, restates his theory in The Chronicle of Higher Education in advance of their new book: the kind of violence currently directed at targets associated with the …

Jessica Lynch has been lionized as a hero by the military, vilified as a fake by the rabid anti-war crowd – she has been bandied back and forth like a tennis ball. She is not a symbol, she is a person, she did not fight like Rambo when she was …

Today marks the 40th anniversary of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, where Martin Luther King Jr. and so many other great orators and civil rights leader spoke of the desire for true equality. I have been listening to NPR’s Tavis Smiley show the past few days as …

Another historian comprehends the danger of fanatical Islamoterrorism: Walter Laqueur – a deeply learned polyglot historian, whose expertise ranges from 19th-century Germany to 20th-century Egypt – has for decades stood out as one of the very few sober and intelligent voices in this undistinguished crowd. His latest book, “No End …

Henri Cartier-Bresson, the 94 year-old “godfather of photojournalism” is honored with a major retrospective at the National Library and the opening of his foundation in Paris: Among the memorable images are his portraits of the painter Henri Matisse in his studio and snatched street scenes from as far afield as …