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As Republican candidates move around the country trying define their conservative credentials, it's worth noting, as perhaps they should, that this year marks the sixtieth anniversary of the publication, by a then 26 year old William F. Buckley, of GOD AND MAN AT YALE. A book that many consider the seminal text of the modern conservative movement. It was a book that would redefine Conservatism in the cold war era and beyond. It was a conservatism that had evolved from Edmund Burke and the French Revolution, and was near death in the late 40's and would be given new life by Buckley. Buckley would go on to found National Review, provide the intellectual heft to continue to drive conservatism, provide the ideological underpinnings of Barry Goldwater, run for Mayor of New York, write over 50 books, appear in almost 1500 episodes of Firing Line and all the while define the difference between the passion of ideas and passion of friendship. Roger Williams University Law Professor Carl T. Bogus gives us a modern view of Buckley in this new book Buckley: William F. Buckley Jr. and the Rise of American Conservatism
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While the American Revolution was primarily about political independence, there were a core of individuals who wanted the United States to gain cultural and social differentiation from its former colonial masters. But it proved not so easy cutting loose from a nation that for two centuries, had set the standard of civilization, not only for the colonies, but for the world. In many respects these issues of trade, of inferiority, of race and of exceptionalism, are still issues we as a nation, are still dealing with today, three hundred plus year later. 
Over the past several years millions of words have been written and spoken about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Rarely in history has a conflict gone on this long, without a resolution, or without taking some kind of corrosive toll on its participants. Today, it seems clear that the intransigence of Israeli leaders threatens not only Israeli and American relations, but internal American politics, the stability of the region itself and also threatens Israel's future as an enlightened democratic nation. This is the premise of Israeli journalist Gershom Gorenberg, in his Book The Unmaking of Israel
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"To thine own self be true" Shakespeare tells us. Little did he know that in calling for this, he was going up against centuries of evolutionary behavior. In fact, renowned biologist and anthropologist Robert Trivers argues, in his new work The Folly of Fools: The Logic of Deceit and Self-Deception in Human Life,
that self deception has been favored by natural selection. That we lie to ourselves in order to be better able to lie to others and throughout history, to the liers go the spoils.
There is a reason that Hurricane Katrina still resonates with us. Not just because of the magnitude of the catastrophe, but because it signaled something profound about the American condition. Because it brought into bold relief the lives of many who lived behind a curtain of poverty, suffering and innate courage. This is the backdrop for the winner of this years National Book Award for Fiction Jesmyn Ward and her novel Salvage the Bones.
What is conservatism and does today's conservatism bear any resemblecne to it's European roots? Why does conservatism today seem so often un-conservative, so radical and nontraditional? From its reaction against the French Revolution, to the intransigence of today's GOP, who do conservative thinkers have in common? Brooklyn College Political Science Professor Corey Robin has sparked a new and needed public conversation about the past, present and future of the conservative movement, in his new book The Reactionary Mind: Conservatism from Edmund Burke to Sarah Palin
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, Brian Kellow gives us that first look behind the lens of Pauline Kael. She liked to say that her work was her biography, but Kellow gives us so much more.
Columbine, Virginia Tech, Northern Illinois University, Cleveland High School. They all conjure up painful images of boys gone bad. We’ve all heard the teacher or the neighbor talk about what a good student or a nice boy some of these perpetrators were. But nice boys, normal boys, don’t kill their fellow students or themselves. So what happened? Can we ever really fully understand what goes on in the minds of these boys and what they tell us about ourselves? Was Cesar right, that “the fault is in ourselves.” Few have looked deeper into this abyss than novelist and journalist David Vann in his original Esquire article about Steven Kazmierczak and the Northern Illinois University shooting and in his most recent book Last Day on Earth: A Portrait of the NIU School Shooter.
We've spent some time lately talking about the 70's. Today we go back even further. When once asked about the impact of the French Revolution, former Chinese Premiere Chou En-lai said it "was too soon to know." Certainly the scope and impact of history is always evolving. So too is the reputation of the thirty-fourth President. Originally thought to be modest, in the wake of the Kennedy excitement of the early 1960's, history has come to appreciate the calm, no drama approach of the Eisenhower Presidency and what it actually accomplished. Looking at today's leaders, a well seasoned grown up might look pretty attractive.
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