Facial Recognition, Urban Dreams, and Rhetoric
“The Secretive Company That Might End Privacy as We Know It.” Kashmir Hill details the workings of a new facial recognition app for the New...
Elites, Content Collapse, and Amish Outhouses
“Saving Democracy From the Managerial Elite.” Michael Lind has a new book coming out about the new class war (look for FPR’s review on...
Old Tractors, Social Media, and Idolatry
“Once it Comes Time.” Michael Adno narrates the life and work of the photographer William Christenberry: “The thread of memory applied to all his...
Nationalism, Ebooks, and Gertrude Himmelfarb
“Rich Lowry’s Nationalist Review.” Patrick Deneen extends the argument he made last summer at the National Conservatism Conference in a review essay of Lowry’s The Case for...
The Farm Bill, Afghanistan, and Philanthropy
I hope you enjoy this week’s slate of essays. I’ll be taking a Christmas break the next two weeks, but look for the Water...
G.E.M. Anscombe, Climate Despair, and René Girard
“Untempted by the Consequences.” John Schwenkler has a rich essay on G.E.M. Anscombe in Commonweal. Her fierce fidelity to “doing the truth” makes her a...
FPR Year in Review
It's been a busy year in the virtual pages of FPR. Exciting things have been happening in what I believe is now called "meatspace"---we...
Chinese Surveillance, Class War, and a Land Tax
“Exposed: China’s Operating Manuals for Mass Internment and Arrest by Algorithm.” Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian reports on China’s sophisticated system of surveillance and detention of Uighurs:
The...
Lukacs, Tarkington, and Place-Based Policies
“Remembering John Lukacs: Ode to an Academic Outsider.” Will Hoyt remembers the life and writings of one of the great historians and writers of...
The Pleasures of Eating, Romano Guardini, and the Two-Income Trap
“The Pleasures of Eating.” Emergence Magazine published a beautifully illustrated version of Wendell Berry’s classic essay with a preface by Alice Waters. Even if you know...