America

July 02, 2024

Horizon: A Great Film that Reminds Us Why the Western Died

Kevin Costner returns to the genre that won him his Best Director and Best Picture Oscars (1991, Dances with Wolves) with an insanely ambitious passion project in which he directs, produces, and stars—and into which he poured $50 million of his own money. Continue Reading...

January 25, 2024

Is the American Dream Dead or Just Buried Under Government Debt?

David Leonhardt is in a rare category of writers these days—a center-left moderate progressive at a dominant media outlet (the New York Times) who often upset left-wingers for telling the truth about COVID. Continue Reading...

July 04, 2023

Hope for America Lies in a Grateful Heart

“Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all the others.” —Cicero, Pro Plancio, 54 B.C. Whenever I act out of anger or fear, I make mistakes—sometimes serious mistakes. Continue Reading...

June 30, 2023

An All-American Asteroid City

During his past decade or so of directing, Wes Anderson has done his darnedest to make audiences forget he’s an American. His most recent films have been set in elaborately imagined fictional versions of Budapest (2014’s The Grand Budapest Hotel), Japan (2018’s Isle of Dogs), and France (2021’s The French Dispatch). Continue Reading...

February 07, 2023

Top Gun: Maverick: Our America Is Back

The surprise hit of 2022 was Top Gun: Maverick, a man and machine heroic picture, sentimental and nostalgic, the sort of thing Hollywood just doesn’t do anymore. At first glance it seemed way too old-fashioned, yet it made more than $700 million in America and just a bit more than that in the rest of the world, without even opening in China. Continue Reading...

December 21, 2022

The Myths of American Individualism

Americans are an individualistic bunch. Our popular culture makes heroes of outsiders, loners, and disrupters. Our politicians emphasize their independence of entrenched institutions, party discipline, and special interests. In economic affairs, we assume that success is within the grasp of anyone who really tries—and harshly judge those who don’t appear to meet the challenge. Continue Reading...

June 30, 2022

Does The Godfather believe in America?

This month the Tribeca Film Festival celebrated the 50th anniversary of the premiere of The Godfather, an important movie, a movie we at some point got in the habit of calling iconic, and we might remember it made stars of a number of actors, starting with Al Pacino. Continue Reading...

May 30, 2022

‘What Shall Men Remember?’: Relearning the forgotten history of Memorial Day

Memorial Day has historically been a day set aside to commemorate the millions of Americans fallen in war. Although the day now involves celebrating America’s war dead regardless of color or creed, what many may not know is that Memorial Day’s origins are actually deeply linked to America’s struggle with racism. Continue Reading...

September 29, 2021

For religion to be national, it must first be personal

What does it mean for a nation to be Christian? Does the United States of America fit the description? At its founding, the United States was undoubtedly a Christian nation. To foster a society of religious freedom and pluralism, the Founding Fathers intentionally did not establish a national religion and took care to separate the domains of church and state in the founding documents of our country. Continue Reading...

July 11, 2017

Reading ‘Democracy in America’ (Part 2): What did Tocqueville mean by ‘equality of condition’?

This is the second part in a series on how to read Alexis de Tocqueville’s “Democracy in America.” Read Part 1 and follow the entire series here. As we begin our study of Democracy in America, we bear in mind that the work’s distinguished author, Alexis de Tocqueville, blessed us with a clear, concise introduction to the two-volume work. Continue Reading...

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