Books, Culture & the Arts

The Moral Consequences of Economic Growth by Benjamin M. Friedman (Knopf, 592 pages, $35.00) Once upon a time I took an undergraduate course in the history of economic thought. The assigned text was a slim little volume whose author announced in his introduction that he intended the book for “the average man and the intelligent […]

“We are not concerned with the very poor,” wrote E.M. Forster in a famous passage from Howards End. “They are unthinkable, and only to be approached by the statistician or the poet. This story deals with gentlefolk, or with those who are obliged to pretend that they are gentlefolk.” As a writer’s creed, these lines […]

“Like most people at the times,” New York Times executive editor Bill Keller told a Princeton gathering on November 14, “I am suffering from a serious case of Judy Miller fatigue.” Aren’t we all? But before we succumb, a deeper look would be timely. The Miller case turns out to be part of an epidemic […]

The Most Exclusive Club: A History of the Modern United States Senate by Lewis L. Gould (Basic Books, 416 pages, $27.50) During last spring’s fight over the proposed “nuclear option” banning judicial filibusters, it was slightly troubling to hear the Democrats’ repeated paeans to the sacred majesty of the Senate and its anti-majoritarian features […]

In Team America: World Police, the puppet-film satire of the global war on terrorism made by Matt Stone and Trey Parker (of South Park fame), North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il is gleefully depicted as an oddball Bond villain: outsized glasses, Elmer Fudd lisp, a streak of maudlin solipsism, and a team of lackeys including al-Qaeda […]

The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion (Knopf, 227 pages, $23.95) “Milk it, but no excessive melodramatics,” John Gregory Dunne tells us he wrote to himself in 1987, shortly after his doctors declared him a candidate for a “catastrophic cardiac event.” In his 1989 memoir, Harp, he reports that he also drafted a […]

The Age of Anxiety: McCarthyism to Terrorism by Haynes Johnson (Harcourt, 624 pages, $26.00) A major threat to the United States suddenly seizes national attention. Alongside some levelheaded responses, many public figures — motivated by fear, displaced resentment, or opportunism — magnify and exploit the menace in ugly ways. Pandering to an angry, […]

Off Center: The Republican Revolution and the Erosion of American Democracy by Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson (Yale University Press, 272 pages, $25.00) Most observers expected at the beginning of 2001 that George W. Bush would pursue a moderate course in office. Some thought he would do so because they’d been duped by […]

The Rise of American Democracy: Jefferson to Lincoln by Sean Wilentz (W.W. Norton & Company, 969 pages, $35.00) During the early 20th century, “Progressive historians” interpreted the American past as an epic struggle to perfect a democratic republic for the common people. Adopting the great American taste for moral melodrama, they cast Thomas […]

In his advance publicity work for Commander in Chief, series creator Rod Lurie told the press that the show — ABC’s new drama about the first female president — was distinctly “anti-partisan.” Oh please, Rod; it’s a lefty wish come true. The audience at the Washington screening put on by the nonprofit women’s group The […]