Arkhangelsk, Russia — The Germans called it humanitarian aid. The International Monetary Fund spoke of structural development, the World Bank of business development. Continue reading “Russians need help, not a billion-dollar handout”
For Many in Britain, the Mourning Became Excessive
The scene is a London cocktail party, not long after the funeral of Princess Diana. On the surface, all is as it should be: There are canapes, crudites and champagne, men in suits, a speech from the man whose birthday it is. Continue reading “For Many in Britain, the Mourning Became Excessive”
State of Tolerance
To the purist, the Christmases of my childhood would no doubt seem anathema. We didn’t go to midnight Mass, and we didn’t pray. We didn’t have a creche, we didn’t have an Advent calendar, and we didn’t think much about the birth of Christ either. Continue reading “State of Tolerance”
A Dearth of Feeling
An essay about the absence of memory of communist crimes.
- This essay was also reproduced in the anthology The Future of The European Past, ed. Roger Kimball and Hilton Kramer, Ivan R. Dee, Chicago, 1997.
Venice has the Piazza San Marco, Paris has the Eiffel Tower, and now Prague has the Charles Bridge: wide and pedestrianised, blackened with age – and suffused with the spirit of capitalism. There are buskers and hustlers along the bridge, and, every fifteen feet or so, someone is selling very much what one would expect to find for sale in such a postcard-perfect spot. Continue reading “A Dearth of Feeling”