Reading room
Reviews, interviews, and cultural criticism engaging questions of beauty, liberty, philosophy, public life, and the foundations of Western society.
A review of Anti-Judaism: The Western Tradition by David Nirenberg David Nirenberg’s Anti-Judaism: The Western Tradition is an extraordinary work of historical inquiry. At nearly 600 pages, it traces how “Judaism”—often more an idea than a living community—has served for over three millennia as a symbol against which civilizations defined truth, order, and legitimacy. This is …
A Review of The Armed Jew by Adam Fuller Professor Adam Fuller’s book, The Armed Jew couldn’t be timelier. As Hamas seeks to find accommodation with Israel through Trump’s peace plan, it is a reminder of their butchery of October 7th, 2023, with the massacre of over 1000, many of them young people, and most …
All questions of candidates, policies, and parties are secondary to the question of what kind of regime We The People will choose, accept, or have forced upon us. Questions about what our regime is, or what it will become, span generations. They are larger in scope than fleeting feelings about individual politicos or the headlines …
Portraiture and John Singleton Copley’s Samuel Adams John Singleton Copley’s 1772 portrait of Samuel Adams in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston is among the most important artworks of the American revolutionary period. John Hancock commissioned the work, which hung in his home alongside his own portrait that the artist painted seven years earlier. …
Imagine being called at 9p and being asked to sub in for another performer for an afternoon concert the next afternoon in front of 2000 people. It sounds daunting, but imagine that you had played the piece in concert just a few weeks before. Less daunting. Now imagine you get on stage, and the orchestra …
I wish I hadn’t looked at X on Sunday night. Earlier in the day, a gunman attacked a congregation of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Michigan. He also set fire to the church building, which is a total loss. As of this writing, four congregants are dead, eight are in the …
David Frisk reviews Lawrence Perelman’s American Impresario: William F. Buckley, Jr., and the Elements of American Character for Law and Liberty. He writes that the book is “a gem, richly insightful on two of Buckley’s deepest qualities—his love of classical music and generosity as a mentor.” It’s the story of how Perelman came to meet …
An April 2025 story in The Art Newspaper contains the headline “Miami dealer charged for hawking fake Warhols.” I must admit that the phrase “fake Warhol” forced an audible laugh; the American Pop Art icon’s work is saturated in “fake,” within the term’s connotations of “inauthentic,” “imitation,” and “unreal.” Warhol “forged” so much of his …
Up today on Words & Numbers, Antony Davies and I are joined by Clark Neily, Senior Vice President for Legal Studies at the Cato Institute, to discuss the weaponization of the Department of Justice, and what that might mean moving forward. The thing you can bet on is that whatever the Trump administration does with …
There is scarcely a person alive who wouldn’t say that music makes life better. Almost all of us, on the order of 90 to 95 percent, listen to music every day. Globally, people listen to over 20 hours of music a week on average. Music is, without question, an indispensable part of life. But sometimes, …
A safe space for the beautiful.