Book Reviews

Late in life when confronted by the mindless consumerism of Life magazine Edmund Wilson said: “I do not belong to the country depicted there… I do not even live in that country.” Every page of Lewis Dabney’s long awaited biography of Wilson is shadowed by his subject’s realization that the America which he had written…

In the 1950s I studied physics at Birkbeck College in London, first as an undergraduate and then as a postgraduate research student under the supervision of the Reader in Theoretical Physics, Dr Reinhold Fürth, an émigré from Continental Europe who had taken his doctor’s degree at the University of Prague. I mention this because from…

In the Jewish-American community one can exhibit complete indifference to Jewish culture and be an outspoken atheist and yet remain a perfectly acceptable member of the tribe. On the other hand, any Jew who openly disapproves of the State of Israel is at risk of being branded a traitor, a dupe of the ubiquitous anti-Semitic…

The issue of official deception has assumed new prominence with the war in Iraq. While offering a number of rationales for military action, the Bush Administration’s primary one before the war was that the nexus of tyranny, weapons of mass destruction, and terrorism posed unacceptable risks for the United States after the attacks on the…

Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer has published a book on judicial philosophy that achieves notice less because of its content than because of the author’s post. The book argues for a “sociological” approach to legal interpretation, which Breyer admits has many rivals in approaches based on direct interpretation of legal language, on historical analysis of…

While a devout fan of British spy novels in general and John le Carré in particular, I think he really overdid it in his latest novel, Absolute Friends. It is confusing, inept and cut short halfway through the events when things just begin to get interesting. (It beats around the bush even more than The…

by Berel Dov Lerner, Maoz Azaryahu, and Jason Jungreis The following letters were sent to the editor regarding Matthew Abraham’s review of Norman Finkelstein’s Beyond Chutzpah in the Fall, 2005, issue of Logos (issue 4.4). Click here to read his review. Professor Abraham’s reply to his critics can be read in the Winter, 2006, issue…

Material Reviewed: Jeffrey Sachs, The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities for Our Time, (New York: Penguin, 2005) Jeffrey Sachs, et.al., “Investing in Development: A Practical Plan to Achieve the Millennium Development Goals,” (New York: UN Millennium Project, 2005), www.unmillenniumproject.org Jeffrey Sachs, et.al., “Ending Africa’s Poverty Trap,” Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, 1 (2004), 117-240, www.earthinstitute.columbia.edu/about/director/publicat.html…

These Are The Times That Try Men’s Souls” (Thomas Paine, The American Crisis, December 23, 1776) In dark times hard-pressed people frequently fall into cynicism and, ultimately, nihilism. An infectious despair can persuade many citizens to accede to authoritarianisms of various stripes. But some exceptionally hardy spirits nevertheless manage to generate hope – moreover, hope…

An American president on a mission to fulfill Biblical prophecy.  His diplomats at odds with him and viewed as out of touch with the electorate by Congress.   A press corps less concerned with investigative journalism than feeding ‘ and appeasing ‘ popular biases.   A body politic, fed by Sunday School images and millenarian forecasts, accepting…