President Trump on Wednesday made the case to a skeptical American public that the military operation in Iran is necessary to stop Tehran from building a nuclear weapon.
President Trump delivered a primetime address about the war on Iran on Wednesday evening, more than a month after hostilities commenced. Trump’s decision to launch the war, in conjunction with Israel, has come to look more and more risky. The conflict has been unpopular since its inception. Soaring gas prices and turbulence on the financial...
For Americans of a certain age and income bracket, Europe is synonymous with Rick Steves, a one-man travel impresario whose guidebooks and tour groups have introduced the continent to thousands of newcomers. Before he became his own brand, Steves was just another scruffy backpacker abroad, an experience he recounts in On the Hippie Trail, a […]
Books on the politics of literary works can go wrong in at least two ways: They can reduce the significance of a literary work to the politics of its author or time (and great works are always about more than mere politics), or they can read today’s politics back into the original work, saddling authors […]
Peter Matthiessen was a towering figure in 20th-century American letters. He was a naturalist, environmentalist, Zen Buddhist priest, teacher, world traveler, CIA agent, and a mystic. He was one of the first writers to be concerned about the extinction of animal species, the care of the environment, and man’s exploitation of indigenous people. His efforts […]
Fun fact about the New York City Housing Authority: A $2 million graft scam barely touches the surface of its multibillion-dollar dysfunction. The conviction...
In 2013, I moved to the United States from the United Kingdom, and in the years since, I’ve learned that there are really two kinds of American holidays, particularly when genuine religious faith is pushed to the background. There are the loud, commercialized holidays that feel like a national competition over who can buy the […]
“Soul and body shall we lay down for our liberty,” the Ukrainian anthem says. That line echoed through Kyiv in 2022 as Russia tried and failed to seize the capital in three days. In those first weeks of the war, enlistment queues formed outside recruitment centers, and territorial defense units ran out of spare weapons […]
“I believe we, the Americans of today, are ready to act worthy of ourselves,” President Ronald Reagan proclaimed in January 1981 during his first inaugural address, “ready to do what must be done to ensure happiness and liberty for ourselves, our children, and our children’s children.” Reagan was nothing less than what the Greek philosopher […]
President Abraham Lincoln issued his famous “Proclamation of Thanksgiving” on Oct. 3, 1863, with the Civil War still raging. As is our annual tradition, we reproduce the text below in commemoration of Thanksgiving Day, as penned by Lincoln and Secretary of State William Seward. The year that is drawing toward its close has been filled with the blessings of fruitful […]
