The New Criterion

Quite simply, the best cultural review in the world
- John O’Sullivan

January 2009

Volume 27, Number 5

Notes & comments

On the first day of holiday . . .

On dismaying disappearances from Junior's dictionary

The art market bubble

On the folly of speculating on contemporary art.

Features

Introduction: The dictatorship of relativism

by Roger Kimball

An introduction our symposium "The Dictatorship of Relativism: Who Will Stand Up for Western Values Now?”

Guarding the boundaries

by Anthony Daniels

On the moral consequences of relativism (from "The Dictatorship of Relativism.")

Relativism as political absolutism

by James W. Ceaser

On the dangers of relativism to the nation-state (from "The Dictatorship of Relativism.")

Truth vs. equality

by Christie Davies

On the relativist threat to science (from "The Dictatorship of Relativism.")

The temptation of Pope Benedict

by Daniel Johnson

On the Pontiff's fight against relativism. ( from "The Dictatorship of Relativism.")

Relativism: paving the road to radicalism

by Andrew C. McCarthy

On the misguided notion of "virtuous" jihad (from "The Dictatorship of Relativism.")

January 2009

Volume 27, Number 5

Departments

Poems


Dance

Prodigal son

by Laura Jacobs

On Jerome Robbins.


Theater

Off the main stem

by Brooke Allen

On Farragut North at the Atlantic Theater Company, Prayer for My Enemy at Playwrights Horizon, and Mouth to Mouth at the New Group.


Art

Ireland's romanticizer

by Christie Davies

On “Daniel Maclise: Romancing the Past” at the Crawford Gallery, Cork, Ireland, October 23, 2008 through February 14, 2009.

Art note

by Mario Naves

On "Live Forever: Elizabeth Peyton" at The New Museum, New York.

Gallery chronicle

by James Panero

On “Frankenthaler at Eighty: Six Decades” at Knoedler & Co., New York.


Music

New York chronicle

by Jay Nordlinger

On the Kirov Orchestra at Avery Fisher Hall, Richard Egarr and Levine & Barenboim at Weill Recital Hall, Weilerstein & Maazel and Elektra at the New York Philharmonic, the Damnation of Faust and Tristan und Isolde at the Metropolitan Opera, The Dream of Jacob's Ladder at the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine, Piotr Anderszewski at Carnegie Hall, and Chanticleer at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.


The Media

The mystification of change

by James Bowman

On the media's game of good and evil.

January 2009

Volume 27, Number 5

Books

Make way for bio-aesthetics

On The Art Instinct by Denis Dutton

by John Derbyshire

Words by the Water (Johns Hopkins: Poetry and Fiction)

Sensual Music

on Words by the Water (Johns Hopkins: Poetry and Fiction)

by William Jay Smith

reviewed by Jeffrey Meyers

Dancing in the Garden: A Bittersweet Love Affair With France

Sensual Music

on Dancing in the Garden: A Bittersweet Love Affair With France

by William Jay Smith,Paul Rhoads

reviewed by Jeffrey Meyers

Tried by War: Abraham Lincoln as Commander in Chief

Lincoln season

on Tried by War: Abraham Lincoln as Commander in Chief

by James M. McPherson

reviewed by Marc Arkin

Philip II of Macedonia

Like father, like son

on Philip II of Macedonia

by Ian Worthington

reviewed by Bruce S. Thornton

Book title

Notes of a drink-man

on Everyday Drinking: The Distilled Kingsley Amis

by Kingsley Amis,Christopher Hitchens

reviewed by Andrew Stuttaford

Book title

The poet's preceptor

on White Heat: The Friendship of Emily Dickinson and Thomas Wentworth Higginson

by Brenda Wineapple

reviewed by Molly McQuade

Book title

Shorter notice

on The Dharma Bums: 50th Anniversary Edition

by Jack Kerouac

reviewed by Callie Siskel

Book title

Shorter notice

on Arguing Conservatism: Four Decades of Intercollegiate Review

by Mark C. Henrie

reviewed by Emily Esfehani-Smith

Bookstore

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New from The New Criterion:
40 page special issue
on our conference

‘Free speech in
an age of Jihad’

Webcasts

The Milt Rosenberg Show: Free Speech in an age of Jihad
Roger Kimball, David Yezzi, and James Panero discuss the New Criterion special pamphlet "Free Speech in an Age of Jihad." From the Milt Rosenberg Show, WGN. Recorded live in the Chicago studios 8/14/2008.


Roger Kimball on liberalism's response to Islam
From an evening with the Illinois chapter of the Friends of The New Criterion. Recorded on 8/16/2008.


Encounter Books at 10, an interview with Roger Simon

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