1 comments about CHE (Ensayo).

1. Vivimos tiempos de confusion e incertidumbre. Tiempos que requieren una profunda reflexion y puesta dia de algunas ideas que permitan concebir el futuro de otra forma. Ernesto Guevara (1938-1967), el Che, se propuso pensar la realidad desde otro angulo y actuar con esas ideas hasta dar su vida por ellas. Su rostro es, pese al tiempo transcurrido desde su muerte a manos del ejercito boliviano, un simbolo universal de rebeldia e inconformismo.
   
   Mario Pacho O'Donnell, biografo de renombre internacional, ha escrito un libro singular, profundo y definitivo con el fin de desvelar aspectos hasta ahora desconocidos de la mitica figura del Che. Tras su rastro, investigando con minuciosidad, el autor ha recorrido el mundo entrevistando a personas que trataron directamente con el en differentes etapas de su vida. Desde Rosario Lopez, su ninera, y los amigos de infancia y adolescencia, a Gary Prado, el capitan de los rangers que le capturo en Bolivia, o Urbano, uno de los escasos supervivientes cubanos que compartio con el comandante Guevara todas sus aventuras revolucionarias. Gracias a estos testimonios y al conocimiento psicologico del personaje, O'Donnell ha sabido reconstruir con amenidad y rigor el pasaje humano, politico y sentimental de uno de los grandes iconos del progresismo y la izquierda.
   
   Hoy en dia, y gracias al amplio y variado movimiento antiglobalizacion y al vigoroso sentimiento antiimerialista por la invasion a Iraq, la figura del Che Guevara es recuperada por una juventud que quiza, por el tiempo transcurrido desde su muerte, no conoce con la suficiente profundidad el trabajo y la valentia, la contradicciones y errores de este legendario guerrillero argentino y cubano.
   --- from book's back cover.

3 comments about Napoleon : The Man Who Shaped Europe.

1. What shocked me above all, reading this book was the complete lack of objectivity manifested by the author. It seems Napoleon can do no wrong and this is emphasized by the constant need for the author to justify the Emperor's actions, by way of asking rather childish questions and making easy assertions, bordering on sophism. The overall feeling we get is Mr. Weider's need for historical "revenge" and the need to clean Napoleon's name. The autor wants to make us see Napoleon as a martyr, a man who was not a conqueror and made war out of strict necessity. This book is neither intended for neophytes, as it glances too rapidly over key historical moments, nor is it intended for experts, because of its biaised approach to the main protagonist and simplistic approach to events. The writing style is dry, almost newspaper-like and fails to carry the reader. Finally, although Mr. Weider theory of assassination is interesting, recent discoveries have discarted his theory. Overall, a deception.



2. I find Napoleon fascinating and the book excellent. From what I read, I certainly now believe Napoleon was misunderstood and his death misdiagnosed. Ben Weider has changed history forever with his groundbreaking evidence that Napoleon was murdered and his research shows that there is still much to learn about Napoleon. I learned a great deal about not only Napoleon, one of the world's leading men, but of the happenings in Europe during his era. When I first saw this book available for sale, I could not wait to read it. I am really pleased that I bought it!!



3. Napoleon: The Man Who Shaped Europe by Ben Weider helped me understand Napoleon better than any other book. It is so clearly written and very compelling, I just couldn't put it down. Numerous biographies of Napoleon are available, but this work is the most straightforward, convincing biography I've ever read. Napoleon Bonaparte's character and achievements have always divided critics and commentators, but in this new book by Ben Weider, I felt I have "met" a Napoleon that is totally different from all the other books I've read. Weider has established his credentials as one of the most evocative of popular historians. It's a must read!!

2 comments about Minotaur: Sir Arthur Evans and the Archaeology of the Minoan Myth.

1. Minotaur by Joseph MacGillivray
   
   This book presents itself as a readable biography of one the great Archaeologists, Sir Arthur Evans, instead of a thoughtful biography the book is really a prolonged attack on Evans (and 19th century archaeology) by an author of dubious credentials and makes for extremely painful reading.
   
   The book is tolerable journalism when its sticks to the factual events, but it is so filled with hostility towards Evans, that the reader is quickly bogged down in a long winded and poorly researched series of ad hominen attacks and innuendo of wrong doing that the thrill of Crete and Minos is completely buried.
   
   The central claim of this bad book is that Evans created Minoan archaeology and did not discover anything. The attacks are unrelenting. The author claims variously : Evans is unscientific and concerned only with objects, stole antquities, horded valuable linear B scripts, was a repressed homosexual, took too much credit for his finds and harmed nearly all of his colleagues, was shrewd and calculating to excess in his business dealings, was a racist because his disliked Turks and personally favored European and Greek religion and culture, was a spoiled wealthly aristocrat of no ability but gifted merely by birth and social standing- who also ate very well, etc etc etc
   
   That the author has issues with Evans is an understatement and parrying all of his attacks (most of which are the authors own unsubstantiated suspicions or irelevant details) is a waste of time.
   
   Evans- the gentlemen and scholar who devoted his 90 years of life to classics, beauty in art and history, who spent his fortune to dig Knossos and who developed new theories of myth and civilization: in short a person whose name will be recalled as long as history-minded Western man is revered- is not present in this book. This book is the product of a modern academic archaeology resentful of its romantic past, that prefers digging with toothbrushes, hates coin collectors, believes antiquities dealers are evil and wishes that British, Germans and French had left everything in the ground for them to sniff about with white gloves and a microscope.
   
   
   That the author is an academic feather-weight is evident in the opening pages, where he attempts to work out his own crude thesis: Evans was not an archaeologist but a myth maker motivated by sexual demons. His analysis is so bad, reading his turns of phrase are like chewing on sand: "Archaeologists are the progenitors as well as the midwives at the birthing process we call excavation." Ugly writing quickly leads to bad analysis such as this delphic prose: " ...we must start with Evans himself, the product of his genes and his life experiences." These experiences include the alleged homosexuality of Evans which the author tries to awkwardly weave into his book perhaps hoping to increase sales, but he cannot find much and we are left with a few sentences of inane writing worthy only of a freshman trying to impress a bored teaching assistant. He writes that he suspects Evans was driven to pursue his career because of the "repressed 'beastliness' of his homosexuality..." His efforts degenerate further a few hundred pages later with innuendo about a young man Evans adopted and his association with Baden Powell and the Boy Scout movement.
   
   The author has no wit and his style wears the reader down. He makes no effort in the biography to educate the reader about the civilization of Crete and takes the excitement of the past away completely. I know of no other book on archaeology that deadens its subject matter to such a degree. The author is all over the place with his own insipid thoughts and at times contradicts his own thin analysis.
   
   For example the author continually harps on the fact that Evan's sister titled her biography of him, "Time and Chance". The author writes "Nothing could be further from what I believe about how Evans discovered Knossos..."(p.6) In his effort to bring Evans down from his perch the author continually paints Evans as simply a digger with money. At the end of his book, the author returns to this theme: "Arthur Evans did not stumble upon Knossos by some happy circumstance. He set his mind on acquiring the rights to a well-documented site.... he secured the expertise he lacked in the person of a site foreman, architects, and conservators..." (p.308) Ok this attack may work in hindsight, but on page 175 the author himself writes: "they all faced the risk that within a few hours they might have removed only a thin layer of eroded soil and exposed a solid rock outcropping scattered with worthless pot shards... Evans might learn that he had chased off the other suitors only to find the bride barren of promise and her dowry worthless. These are the risks excavators take." Which is it? Did Evans simply walk in and dig up what everyone knew was there or did chance play a role and did he finally locate the fabled city of Knossos after three and a half millenium? Clearly this writer is a moron.
   
   A good graduate student should set things right and demolish MacGillivray's shoddy research on Evans, a student of history with a sense of the classical- not one inspired while waiting to use public tennis courts in Manhattan as MacGillivray says he was. Surely some inspiration can still be found in the stones of ruined cities, a brilliant gemstone or winds of the Mediterranean.
   
   The author, in writing this extended effort to libel the dead, succeeds only in diminishing our native appreciation of history, and our myths. That is the end point of modernity.



2. Sandy MacGillivray's in depth analysis of the life and times of pioneer Cretan archaeologist Sir Arthur Evans was a pure joy to read. The author's own experiences as a professional in the field on Crete add great weight to his arguments as he finds himself coping the Evans' legacy on a daily basis. I really got the sense that the author knew Evans, both the man and the scholar, through close attention to and extensive research on the amply available primary sources. This is a wonderfully scholarly, yet very readable and highly interesting book to both the professional archaeologist and interested armchair amateur.

No comments about Portrait of a Patriot, Volume 2: The Major Political and Legal Papers of Josiah Quincy Junior (Colonial Society of Massachusetts).

4 comments about I Was a Communist for the FBI: Matt Cvetic: The true life and times of undercover agent Matt Cvetic.

1. I almost didn't buy this book after reading Hodgson's review, but I'm glad I did, because it may not be thick but what it contains was clearly missing in Daniel Leab's book: Balance. As a college instructor myself, I know how left wing we tend to get in our ivory towers, but Leab's book goes so far out of it's way to present the liberal spin of an historical event, it's embarrassing. Fortunately, Payne's isn't quite as biased as Leab-- he does spot significant flaws in Cvetic whereas Leab can find nothing but flaws. But history clearly supports the truth of Cvetic's basic claims-- even if sensationalized, American communists were receiving secret funds and direction from the Soviets to destabilize the US. That's criminal whether you support free enterprise or not. Cvetic provided names, dates, specific schemes, and nearly 100 pounds of snatched Union documents to prove it.
   
   No one doubts that some innocent people got hurt in the crossfire. They do in every war, including the cold war. However, to suggest the FBI and counter intelligence agencies (including Cvetic) were just running witch hunts is factually false. It's funny in a way. Payne succeeds in less than 80 pages to do what Leab can't accomplish with hundreds of poison penned pages... To convince readers his basic opinion of Cvetic is the historically accurate one. He does so by showing that although Cvetic himself was selfish and flawed, he accomplished a very dangerous and heroic mission by exposing subversive Red activities. I'm beginning to think that anyone who works undercover for years and years will have serious issues. But I'm appreciating their sacrifice more, because regardless of if it's Soviet directed communists, the American Mafia, or yes, even Islamic terrorists, you often need a "stool pigeon" to catch the criminals who are experts at exploiting our freedoms in order to hurt us.



2. 40 years after Matt Cvetic's death, and long after Cvetic was forgotten in the public mind, Daniel Leab's's hardcover, "I Was a Communist for the F.B.I: The Unhappy Life and Times of Matt Cvetic" stands as the definitive biography. Payne's slim little tome (published through vanity-press publisher AuthorHouse) however reads like someone who was a secret admirer of Cvetic, and just couldn't stand to see Leab have the last word.
   
   It seems like Payne started out with the idea of writing an apolgia or a eulogy, but once he get rolling can't help but confirm all that had been said about the man. A Poor Man's James Bond FBI wannabe (think: Incrediboy) whose gonzo-like independent 'investigations' made him too much of a gadfly for the FBI to ignore, Cvetic rode the coattails of Sen. Joseph McCarthy to fame with only a few crumbs of funding from the political right. By stretching his threadbare FBI connections, the former salesman and low-level government employee got the attention he was looking for and stretched his particular brand of anticommunist agitprop into a career long before pundits like G. Gordon Liddy and Ollie North would do the same.
   
   Payne's book doesn't add much to the story of Cvetic, and its lack of footnotes, unaccredited attributions and mantra-like commentary ('Cvetic risked his life for Nine Years investigating the Communist Party' appears over and over again) makes one wonder what the point is. To the author's credit, Payne makes little attempt to cover up Cvetic's many flaws - although the overall effect is rather sad. ("He was a drunk, a womanizer and a self-promoter - but he was patriotic, and he never got rich!") I imagine the tone might have been different if Leab's well-researched book hadn't been published first.
   
   The last half of the book (and I do mean half - pages 40 through 80) contain mostly speeches of the day unrelated directly to Cvetic and "random thoughts" about the McCarthyistic climate of the time. Purely filler, but interesting - it's not pretty sticking up for the times of HUAC and McCarthy, and the author doesn't try to.



3. A thin book retorting the criticism of Matt Cvetic, famous FBI informant who worked inside the Pittsburgh area Communist Party for nine years. Cvetic testified against the CP a month after Joe McCarthy made his charge that there were over 200 communists in the Federal government helping to direct policy. Warner Bros. made a film of Cvetic's life entitled I Was A Communist For the FBI. There was also a radio show. "Gus" Payne makes the point that Cvetic's personal life and attributes have no bearing on the validity of what he reported to his FBI handlers (Cvetic drank, loved publicity, and smacked women around). Furthermore, Payne argues, Cvetic's character was not out-of-the-ordinary for a spy: gift of gab, narcissistic, hooked on the exhilaration of living a secret life, suffering periodic attacks of nerves, and (after his cover was lifted) bathing in the limelight of how slick he was. The FBI paid Cvetic the last seven years he was undercover, and Payne argues that this was only right considering the sacrifices and danger Cvetic endured for many years. His family practically disowned him, his mother died still thinking he had gone communist, and there was a real danger he would be found out and murdered. In the end Cvetic delivered to the FBI over 300 names of active members and conspirators, CP legers, and the names of dummy communist front organizations.
   One does not need to read Cvetic's book to enjoy Payne's evaluation of it. Payne explains thoroughly and quotes widely from Cvetic. Payne leans to the right politically, but-like it or not-communist spy rings did indeed run roughshod through the country for ten years. They got going well by the middle 1930s and did not come under intense investigation until after WWII ended. Meanwhile the spy rings helped get Russia the atomic bomb. Cvetic's book-as well as Herb Philbrick's I Lead Three Lives-is a worm's eye view of B level Communist Party workers in the trenches, directed by secret cabals of elites, striving for the success not of communism but of the Soviet Union. This was a quick but interesting read. I recommend it.



4. I have read other accounts of Matt Cvetic of Pittsburgh as undercover FBI agent 1941-1950 for the FBI but this is the only one that respects the man for what he did. He risked his life and family life for the sake of his country but is portrayed as a money hungry boozer by some authors. I really appreciate what this author did.

4 comments about Living A Political Life.

1. This book really makes a lot of sense. I enjoyed it and learned a lot about Governor Kunin. Being from Vermont, I can relate to everything that she has done for this state, and she in turn became (in my opinion) one of our greatest governors. I highly recomend this book!



2. i found the book interesting with the female outlook on politics but it was quite boring in some ways. She seemed to dweel on some topics much more than needed.(for example:she had 200 pages worth of ideas but somehow expanded it to 400 pages with repetitiion)
   in some palces this book is very iinteresting but in other places it is excrutiatingly boring



3. Kunin was a state legislator for many years, lt. governor and governor of Vermont. I enjoyed her book very much. It is perhaps the best memoir of a career in state government I have read.

   Kunin's book is mostly about her ascent to the top of Vermont politics, not what she did once she got there. More of the book is devoted to her career as a legislator and ver various campaigns than her tenure as Governor. She tells her story very much as that of a woman in politics, not just a political player. All this, I think, gives the book a more universal appeal than a Vermont-centered book would.

   Kunin is an excellent storyteller, but what makes the book truly special is its degree of frankness. Contemporary politicians generally don't write good books. Too often their books are pieces of revisionist history, extended press releases, or platforms. Kunin's book is nothing like that. She names names, she explores her doubts, she even commits the ultimate political taboo of expressing frustration with constituents. Beyond all that this is a flat out interesting, well-written book.

   Kunin is an interesting character. She does a good job of conveying her sense of wonder at the improbability of it all. Kunin was not only the first woman governor of Vermont, she is also a Jewish immigrant who fled Nazi occupied Europe as a child and whose father committed suicide. Interestingly, she doesn't much discuss her parents and their generation, and her story of fleeing Europe until near the end of the book, when she mounts the podium for the first time as Governor. This is an excellent device. Kunin plunges right into her political journey rather than the traditional, "When I was a child" By the time she tells us about her parents, we have reason to be interested in them. And their story is so unusual that it could make for an interesting book in itself. All that adds up to convey the point that her arrival was not at all anticipated by her past. This is a great way to end a book about politics.

   State politicians seldom produce books. This is a welcome exception. The book seems to have staying power and should be read by anyone interested either in state politics, or women in politics. I enjoyed it immensely.




4. I had to read this book for a college course in "Woman in Politics." I am so glad I did. I still list it as one of my all time favorite books and Ms. Kunin as a role model.

   I found Ms. Kunin's road to a political life a very interesting and inspiring one. Though it's been 3 years since I've read "Living a Political Life," I am reminded of Ms. Kunin's journey to be true to herself as I travel my own journey as a wife, mother of three boys, secretary for our own business, a full-time outside career in politics and local voluteerism. I believe she tried to portray a women who could do it all and have it all if you believe in something and have a passion for it.

   Any women, young or old, working, stay-at-home mom, student, etc. would benefit from reading this book. This book also makes a great gift.

5 comments about Winning Back America.

1. This book is awesome! I love Howard Dean and I really do wish that he would have ran against Bush instead of John Kerry. I think that Dean would have had a better chance of beating Bush.
   
   This book is a great intro to Howard Dean and its a fun quick read.



2. This is actually a great book if someone is interested in the man and how he came to be and why he holds the beliefs he holds and I was pleasantly surprised by the depth of Howard Dean after reading the book.
   
   Ironically my husband had looked forward to voting for him in California's primary but died a few days before. I considered for a moment sending in his ballot marked as he would have voted, but I'm bad at forging his signature and not being a registered Democrat I couldn't vote for Dean myself.
   
   In reading the book I wondered what the outcome would have been had more Americans had access to the book, because the man is so middle America and not the nut case the right suggested and the media projected. So in that respect I am saddened.
   
   Loved reading of his upbringing, wife, kids, community and his hands on concern for all of his state when he was Governor, and not simply for the 'haves'.
   
   The later part of the book should have been longer, since he barely touched on issues that I consider important. Hopefully he will write another book. Am proud that he was so anti-Iraq war from the get go and that he had the gutts to question Bush when so many others were to trusting.



3. Howard Dean is a man that actually makes sense. His politics are based on simple proven principles that would really make a difference in this Country. Too bad regular americans didn't take the time to really listen to what he has to say. Get the book and learn something. It is worth it!



4. Dean makes a lot of good logical arguments on how to turn the country around. He is not the loose cannon that the conservative press makes him out to be. We need more free thinkers like Howard Dean. Sure, he is not perfect, but he adds a great deal to the national debate on important issues like health care, education and national security.

   Jeffrey McAndrew
   author of "Our Brown-Eyed Boy"




5. This is an EXCELLENT book, I was actually quite surprised to discover. I didn't expect the Governor to come across well in written words ... I thought the book would be just a ghost-written, watered-down version of the campaign speeches ... sort of like a book you might expect from G.W.B. I should've known better. Instead, I found the book to be very inspiring; quite easy to read ... and in complete harmony with the truth I know.

   You'll read it more than once.

No comments about British Pro-Consuls in Egypt, 1914-1929: The Challenge of Nationalism.

No comments about The Diary of Kosa Pan: Thai Ambassador to France, June-July 1686.

5 comments about My Love Affair With America: The Cautionary Tale of a Cheerful Conservative.

1. Norman Podhoretz, the wise, puckish sage of NAMBLA, has come out with a new collection of homespun wisdom. I don't necessarily agree with his suggestion that America put its defense department "in a blind trust" under the direction of Israel, although it is refreshing to hear a prominent Neo-Con admit his secret intentions. Nor will most readers find the same pleasure in watching animals eat their young that seems to arouse Podhoretz so profoundly. But the wonderful memoir -- "From Brownsville to Brownsville" -- a tale of Podhoretz's long ride, most of it on a pogo stick, from Brooklyn to Texas -- ought to move anybody who has yearned to "make it" himself.



2. I find Podhoretz to be a pitiable unimpressive individual, a bitter pathetic old man. He recently stated on Fresh Air with Terry Gross that he has no friends who disagree with him. He lamented this as if to blame it on others stating that politics are the new religion and this is why the polarization in this country exists as it does. If for no other reason it is for the cavalier disregard he expresses for human life. One cannot find intolerance unless one is himself intolerant. I have many people who call me friend whom I disagree with on political issues.
   
   Podhoretz and those who embrace the sick and twisted vision of "neoconservativism" are themselves more dangerous and fanatical than those they are seeking to defeat. If Podhoretz and his fellow neocons are what America has become than America must surely fail, in Iraq and elsewhere. They have debased and perverted what they claim they are seeking to defend. There is nothing noble in the unenlightened neoconservative vision of American hegemony.
   
   No one in America has learned any lessons from the events of Sept 11, 2001 because no one has as yet examined the genuine cause for the behavior of terrorists. The past half century of American foreign policy has been one of nothing but blatant hypocrisy.
   
   I wouldn't gratify the perpetrator of these insane ramblings by giving him any money for this or anything else he or any of his fellow conspirators have written and neither should anyone else.



3. Podhoretz writes with intimacy and frankness. His experience as the child of Jewish immigrants growing up in Brooklyn and ultimately becoming a conservative is what should be a logical conclusion of so many more lives than New York peer pressure typically allows. A great example of someone with the wisdom to get past the elitist hangups of the NYC intelligentsia who instead followed his heart to the truth. A gentle read, and an overall pleasure!



4. Perhaps the absolutely fundamental neoconservative idea was the need to reassert American
   nationalism or patriotism or "Americanism" or "American exceptionalism": the idea that American
   society, however flawed, is not only essentially good but somehow morally superior to other
   societies.

   [This idea] is especially associated with immigration. The future neoconservatives mostly came
   from relatively recent immigrant stock. It is arguable, though certainly unproven, that such people
   in America feel a stronger need than those of longer American lineage to display their credentials
   as Americans; or rather, that those whose families came over on the Mayflower feel that there is
   nothing incompatible between deep patriotism and a propensity to shout about what needs to be
   changed.
   -The World Turned Right Side Up : A History of the Conservative Ascendancy in America
   (1996) (Godfrey Hodgson)

   Boy, Godfrey Hodgson really hits the nail on the head there. Norman Podhoretz's book, My Love
   Affair With America, is basically a protracted attempt to suggest that he loves America more than any
   of his former rivals on the Left, or current rivals on the Right. Podhoretz famously broke ranks with
   the intellectual New York set in the 1970's, having determined that their anti-Americanism, most
   ostentatiously displayed during the Vietnam War, neither jibed with his own life experiences--the
   meteoric rise of a poor Jewish child of immigrants to respected writer status--nor was compatible with
   the need to maintain a militarily strong and assertive America, to stand as a final guarantor of an
   embattled Israel's continued existence. He has an easy time rewinning his old battle with the radical
   counterculture (though he's unable to resist the compulsion to claim credit for having created that
   counterculture in the first place). Their anti-Americanism is a result of their genuine opposition to
   freedom, which is America's organizing principle. They do not wish to perfect America, but to
   destroy it and remake it in an image of their utopian (or dystopian) fantasies. Podhoretz gives them
   yet another well-deserved drubbing.

   But then he takes on the modern Right, and here he founders badly :

   In the mid-1990s there unexpectedly came an outburst of anti-Americanism even among some of
   the very conservatives I thought had been permanently immunized against it...I was already pushing
   seventy, and it made me a little tired to think of going back into combat over a phenomenon that I
   had fondly imagined I would never have to deal with again, and certainly not on the Right

   The anti-Americanism he's talking about is the harsh, but loving, cultural criticism of Bill Bennett and
   Robert Bork, and the tentative suggestions on the Religious Right that the Supreme Court may have so
   far departed from the Constitution in its decisions on social issues, specifically abortion and
   Church/State issues, that it is no longer a legitimate institution. Podhoretz is horrified by these trends
   and seeks to read them out of the Conservative movement, but they were there long before him and
   will remain long after.

   The problem for Podhoretz, and for neoconservatism in general, is the absence of a core political
   philosophy. The Left believes that the central duty of government is to guarantee equality of
   outcomes among the citizenry and that government is capable of solving social problems and
   effectively running the economy. Classic Conservatism is structured around a countervailing belief in
   freedom, which necessitates a very limited government, but strong social institutions, and, though it
   requires equality of opportunity, accepts that the resulting outcomes will be very different.
   Neoconservatism is really only interested in supporting Israel and opposing quotas, it's largely agnostic
   on the other issues and has no firm view of the proper role of government generally. On social issues,
   a natural distrust of Christian conservatism and the fact that neoconservatism arose in the urban milieu,
   combine to create a willingness to countenance big government, and the need for a massive military
   requires big government. On the other hand, if equality is enforced by the state, it will work to the
   detriment of groups, like Jews, who are disproportionately successful, so there's a reluctance to trust
   government too far. This naked self-interest is certainly legitimate, but it's hardly a coherent political
   philosophy.

   That Podhoretz is only marginally conservative becomes clear from the fact that he almost completely
   ignores the question of the size and role of government, from his dismissal of objections to the 1964
   Civil Rights Act, from his failure to discuss, except in passing, the free market economic philosophy
   of folks like Milton Friedman and F. A. Hayek, and from his failure to comprehend why abortion is
   such a salient issue on the Right. Even more revealing is his thinly disguised contempt for the
   conservative intellectuals of the first half of the century, who either go unmentioned (Albert Jay Nock,
   for example) or are dismissed as cranks (like the Agrarians--Allen Tate, Robert Penn Warren, etc.).
   He seems to think that conservatism was born in the 1950s, only became a significant political
   movement in the post Vietnam era (not coincidentally, just after he joined it) and consists of little
   more than nationalism.

   Were that true, were conservatism nothing more than a blind patriotism, of recent vintage, then he
   would be right to criticize cultural conservatives for questioning the moral climate of the country and
   the direction in which it is heading. But conservatism, even American conservatism, antedates
   America. And conservatism has endured precisely because it offers such a powerful critique of
   America. In Albert Jay Nock's great book, Memoirs of a Superfluous Man, he says the following :

   Burke touches [the] matter of patriotism with a searching phrase. 'For us to love our country,' he
   said, 'our country ought to be lovely.' I have sometimes thought that here may be the rock on
   which Western civilization will finally shatter itself. Economism can build a society which is rich,
   prosperous, powerful, even one which has a reasonably wide diffusion of material well-being. It
   can not build one which is lovely, one which has savour and depth, and which exercises the
   irresistible attraction that loveliness wields. Perhaps by the time economism has run its course the
   society it has built may be tired of itself, bored by its own hideousness, and may despairingly
   consent to annihilation, aware that it is too ugly to be let live any longer.

   By economism, Nock means a kind of unfettered materialism or consumerism. These lines, prophetic
   anyway, seem even more prescient in light of the events of September 11th. There is a palpable sense
   in America's continuing discussion of the events that the America that died on September 11th
   deserved to die (though the victims certainly did not), that it was too self-centered, too trivial, too
   degenerate. People have now judged the America of the 1990s, which Podhoretz is here defending
   against conservative critics, and, as W. H. Auden said of an earlier time, they have determined it to be
   "a low dishonest decade."

   In the final pages of the book Podhoretz offers a dayyenu, a list of each of the things that would have
   been sufficient for us to owe America a debt of gratitude. After a brief, and platitudinous, generic list,
   including such things as "domestic tranquillity" (which one is tempted to point out that China too
   enjoys), he gets to his real reasons for feeling patriotic, and they are all about the success he's made of
   himself : "...America...sent me to a great university..."; "...America handed me a magazine of my own
   to run..."; "...America saw to it that I would live in an apartment in Manhattan..."; "...America
   arranged for me to build a country house...". It's utterly vacuous and truly appalling.

   Freedom is vital to everything that America stands for. It makes possible the kind of rags to riches
   story that Podhoretz has lived. But it is not enough. Conservatives demand freedom, but also believe
   that our country "ought to be lovely." This loveliness consists mostly of an adherence to the eternal
   values of the Judeo-Christian tradition, of which, as Nock says, we are unworthy inheritors. And right
   there is another key element, humility. Conservatives realize that our inheritance is too precious to
   experiment with willy-nilly and so seek to conserve as much as can possibly be conserved of that
   tradition. Paraphrasing Nock (one last time, I promise), who borrowed a phrase from Lord Falkland :

   What it is not necessary to




5. Norman Podhoretz' billet-doux to the country who has given him so much is an enthralling read occasionally marred by desultory digressions.

   Like all long lasting marriages, this love affair went through periods of turbulence, but even when he felt instances of temptation, he was true to his citizenship and never gave into infidelity. Such inveterate loyalty did not extend to his politics. Once an avowed liberal, "Commentary's" long time editor maturated into as the subtitle declares "a cheerful conservative." Still, his devotion to his homeland remained steadfast regardless of where he was on the political scale. One of the salient disillusionments he found with liberalism was the ignominious tendency to badmouth America. Acts of such betrayal outraged Mr. Podhoretz and no doubt gave increased impetus to his propitiation toward conservatism.

   This love letter warns of a similar concern more recently seen from the right, but this is one area where the supporting evidence is weak. Except for the discussion of a controversial seminar and a handful of other morsels, this charge remains rather unsubstantiated. Certainly, nothing is given that equates to the sixties radicals offering vainglorious aid and comfort to the Vietcong.

   It should also be noted that Mr. Podheretz wisely does not see justified, severe criticism of the government as a lack of faithfulness to the nation. He was one of the many eclectic movers and shakers (ranging from Clinton/Gore cheerleaders Alan Dershowitz and Lawrence Tribe to conservative icons William Bennett and incoming Secretary of Labor Linda Chavez) who gracefully signed the brilliant syndicated ad urging the supine congress to take some action against Clinton, Reno, and company for the savage incursion and kidnapping perpetrated on the noble Gonzales family that infamous Easter weekend. Despite the natural umbrage he felt by this execrable breach committed by her opprobrious government, his allegiance to his beloved America was not diminished.

   In this zeitgeist where patriotism and fidelity are routinely belittled, this tale of mutual honor and approbation stands as an example to be emulated.