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One of the great animating forces in the American psyche is self-delusion. Maybe it’s something we pick up because others wear it well,... Read More

First published in the spring of 1994, two months before the birth of Amazon and one month after the death of Kurt Cobain, Bird by Bird by... Read More

The instrumental theme of “Playing in the Band” consists of four notes, played in dueling harmony by the Grateful Dead’s... Read More

On February 11th, RealClear will host its third annual Samizdat Prize Gala at The Breakers in beautiful Palm Beach, Florida. The Samizdat... Read More

Much of contemporary discourse about China remains trapped in what might be called an all-consuming Trump vortex, where nearly everything is... Read More

The School of Night, Karl Ove Knausgaard’s latest novel published in English, translated by Martin Aitken, is the fourth volume in a... Read More

The year is 1983. At 8pm sharp on 28 February, 106 million viewers tune in to watch the M*A*S*H finale. The next day, everyone from... Read More

Here’s a proposition for you: the American vernacular that emerged between roughly 1920 and 1970 was the second great peak of the... Read More

Late last year, the architects of California’s “Billionaire Wealth Tax” ballot proposition quietly amended language in... Read More

When leafing through the newspapers, I mentally tally each story involving a man hauled before the courts, charged with what editors... Read More

The classic film, Doctor Zhivago (1965), offers a cautionary tale about what happens when collectivism threatens and confiscates private... Read More

Are mobile phones bad? Or what? This is a question many leading thinkers are currently thinking about. In an effort to answer it, let’s... Read More

Although it might be hard to believe these days, there was a time when atheism was cool. Twenty years ago, a squad of public intellectuals... Read More

As any good authoritarian knows, the march to fascism requires capturing the courts, the media, and the schools. History and social studies... Read More

The odometer broke, thousands of miles and a lifetime removed from the all-night neon hustle of Times Square and the evergreen Zen of the... Read More

“They provoke, … the kind of love that one feels only for amazing things that could not come out of one’s own imagination... Read More

Last year, theories about the spiritual energy around Charlie Kirk spread like wildfire the week of his death. Megyn Kelly appeared on Jack... Read More

I wouldn’t be caught dead wearing American flag-themed apparel, let alone flying the flag in public. I go out of my way to make... Read More

Leonardo DiCaprio has come to London on what seems to be a sophisticated middle-aged gentleman’s cultural tour of Europe.... Read More

By “machine” I mean the cinematic medium—that affair of celluloid, electric light, and whirring motors. By... Read More

In the beginning, it was just his jawline. Gabriel Dridi says he was 13 when he became obsessed with improving his looks, and 15 or 16 when... Read More

Opponents of affirmative action hoped that the Supreme Court had delivered a death blow to the controversial policy in 2023 when Chief... Read More

Nearly a half century after his death, Alfred Hitchcock remains, despite his prolific early career in Britain, one of the most popular and... Read More

In the early Seventies, America looked to be all played out. The postwar industrial boom that powered its golden age of capitalism was... Read More

At the start of each year, I offer my perspective on the “State of the Culture.” My assessments... Read More

It’s said that we live in a crisis of democracy, but it would be better stated that we live in a crisis of politics. Throughout the... Read More

It cannot be said that Theodore Roosevelt has suffered from historical neglect. Harvard's collection of Rooseveltiana boasts 14,000 works by... Read More

As anyone living today knows, the Luddites were fighting a losing battle. Though they broke stocking frames, burned factories, and killed... Read More

I’ll spare you my knee-jerk impression of historical novels. And, obviously, there’s a formula to everything, I get it. People... Read More