thoughts in and out of season
A weblog “dedicated to the late Murray Rothbard” gives a detailed and very positive review of my book, calling it “provocative and profound,” and “a book I recommend to all” that “defends a traditional conservatism one can respect.”
The blogger, of course, is a libertarian. The biggest difference he can see between my views and … More ...
Here’s a chapter from 2008 for a projected collection of essays. The book never got published, but here’s what I wrote:
PC and the Destruction of Culture
by James Kalb
Political correctness is an odd tendency. It does not fit in with how people normally think about things, so no one knows what to make … More ...
There’s another review of my book, this one in the August Chronicles. It’s short (2/3 page) but lavish in its praise (“Savor that felicitous prose … Rejoice that another voice has been added … “). The author is the Rev. Lloyd E. Gross, a retired Lutheran pastor (Missouri Synod).
An old friend asked me to contribute something to an issue of the Mensa Research Journal he was guest-editing on the topic of “Barriers to Educating the Gifted” (vol. 40, No. 2; summer 2009). Here’s the result, plus or minus a few footnotes and editorial fiddles:
… More ...“Our children are our future.”
“A mind is a
It’s another brief one, this time in New Oxford Review.
Incidentally, the paperback version is sold out and the hardbound version is running low. I’m told a new printing of the paperbound is being scheduled but the hardbound will not be reprinted. So get yours fast!
Susan McWilliams, a political scientist and Front Porch Republic contributor, has a slightly belated contribution to the symposium on my book up at First Principles. She praises the book highly from a generally liberal perspective as an attempt to get beyond the dichotomies of today’s politics by looking at basic questions.
My book got a brief notice in (as it happens) the “Briefly Noted” section of First Things (scroll down the page). It’s basically a zippy little precis by a very recent Princeton graduate they have now, Stefan McDaniel. To cut a precis down to a blurb, Mr. McD tells his readers that:
… More ...“James Kalb’s new
First Principles, the ISI online journal, has a symposium on my book The Tyranny of Liberalism with positive reviews by Paul Gottfried and James Matthew Wilson, and a not-so-positive one by William English. My response to the reviews is here.
Evan McLaren notes that I mostly deal with grand issues and tend toward a “big tent” approach, at least among right-wingers, and wonders whether that makes sense.
I think my approach has been helpful theoretically, for getting an overall understanding of issues. If you give free play to a lot of different concerns, and don’t … More ...
A friend has forwarded to me his translation of Letter to Cardinal Fornari On the Errors of Our Time by Juan Donoso Cortes and given permission to make it available on the web. At the time the letter was written Cardinal Fornari was in charge of a commission studying modern errors for Pope Pius IX … More ...