http://www.themontrealreview.com Politics, Culture, Ideas http://www.themontrealreview.com/photo2/montreal_page/top-banner-small.gif http://www.themontrealreview.com http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/The-Legacy-of-Tiananmen-Square.php More than twenty years later, the legacy of Tiananmen Square remains, an unsolved problem. The prominent names in the struggle, such as Wang Juntao, the mentor of the student leaders, or Wang Dan, leader of the Tiananmen student movement, live for the most part in exile in the United States, Europe, Hong Kong, or Taiwan... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/China-Facelift-Economic-Development-and-Political-Transition.php In March this year, the moulting of the political structure of the People's Republic of China was completed at the annual plenary session of the National People's Congress and the old faces at the top politely offered their seats to their younger colleagues... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Darwin-and-Dogma.php In September of 2012, the eminent philosopher Thomas Nagel published a calm and dispassionate book challenging the reigning scientific orthodoxy of the day. In his book Mind and Cosmos, Nagel argues that the current materialist, neo-Darwinian explanatory model cannot account for the existence of consciousness, reason and value... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/In-Leviathan-Belly.php In 1956, in the dead-end of the Cold War, Horkheimer and Adorno embarked on recorded discussions in view of a new version of the Communist Manifesto for the new times (just as Brecht had in 1944 felt the need to renew it for the age of world wars and in hexameter form)... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/The-Wright-Brothers-Right-or-Wrong.php The controversy over whether the Wright Brothers were, in fact, the first humans to take to flight on December 17, 1903 in the famed Kitty Hawk in North Carolina has been an enduring one... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Likeness-autobiographical-essays-by-Michael-Milburn.php In our house a hallway ran the length of the second floor, ending at my mother's bedroom. Standing outside my room, I could look down the hall and see whether her door was open, meaning that she was awake and receiving visitors, and whether one of my five siblings was sitting in the chair facing her bed... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Tea-with-the-Vicar-or-the-Pleasures-of-Light-English-Fiction.php Some things never go out of style. This means, of course, comic novels published in England in the first half of the twentieth century. Unfortunately, they do go out of print... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Emile-Nelligan-un-Dante-d-une-epoque-dechue.php A l'époque de son apogée, Emile Nellighan était un jeune gamin subtil et frileux, intellectuel mais pas livresque, aliénée par sa profonde solitude et angoissé par le manque de discours avec ses ainés... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/The-Green-Economy-A-Load-of-Old-Bull.php Britain, and the EU generally, is in the throes of a crisis of confidence in its food supply. The largely unregulated and highly competitive process of producing what ends up on our plates has been offering evidence of poor quality, dishonest labelling, and probably criminal fraud... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Political-Emotion-From-Pride-to-Envy.php The emotions at the heart of contemporary American political discourse have undergone a dramatic shift. For decades, it was all about pride... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Adam-Smith-and-the-Character-of-Virtue.php Gains and losses; costs and benefits. Thinking in these terms comes naturally to most of us today. And for this we largely have economists to thank... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Democracy-in-Retreat.php After the end of Cold War in the early 1990s, the new millennium sees a return of autocracy and decline of democracy worldwide. http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/The-Character-of-U-S-China-Relations.php The 'Chinese dream' (Zhongguo meng), put forth by the new leader Xi Jinping, aspires to match the American dream. Before we dismiss it as just another copycat slogan, let us consider that in history, glorifying labels have often switched owners. At least China does not claim to be God's own country. Just yet. http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/National-Identities-and-Bilateral-Relations-East-Asian-and-Chinese-Demonization-of-the-United-States.php Gilbert Rozman on National Identities and Bilateral Relations: Widening Gaps in East Asia and Chinese Demonization of the United States. http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Secularism-and-State-Policies-Toward-Religion-The-United-States-France-and-Turkey.php State policies on religion are the result of ideological struggles between the defenders of two types of secularism. In the US, the dominant ideology is 'passive secularism,' which allows public visibility of religion. The dominant ideology in France and Turkey, in contrast, is 'assertive secularism,' which aims to confine religion to the private domain and to exclude it from the public sphere. Other cases where assertive secularism is dominant include Mexico, while passive secularism is dominant in such cases as India and the Netherlands... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/South_Korea_in_the_early_2000s.php SEOUL, Republic of Korea (ROK), June 2001. For reasons of security photography in Kimpo Airport is forbidden. The drive into the city crosses the massive rust-colored Songson Bridge. It was a wet Wednesday evening. Heavy traffic, non-descript post WW2 high rises. Red, green, and blue the preferred colours, a second look revealed some browns and pinks... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/The-Future-of-the-Korean-Peninsula.php The recent visit of Dennis Rodman and members of the Harlem Globetrotters to North Korea raises the spectre of Ping-Pong diplomacy in the normalization of relations between China and the U.S. Tragically, this is an unlikely parallel... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Baikonur-Cosmodrome.php Just off the main drag in Karaganda, a coal mining and industrial city in northern Kazakhstan, the EcoMuseum is housed on the first floor of a local government administration building. You have to know where you're going because there's no sign on the street, and only a small one on the door... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/The-Necktie-and-the-Human-Condition.php Class, today's topic is: The world is divided into two kinds of people: those who wear neckties and those who comment on those who wear neckties. Discuss... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Maiden-of-Ludmir.php Traditional Judaism severely curtailed the role women could play in the arena of religious duties. Women were viewed as necessarily limited by biology, as Jewish law considered women unclean during menstruation and for a certain time following childbirth. In fact, anyone even touching such a woman was considered unclean... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/I-Am-Your-Man-The-Life-of-Leonard-Cohen.php Leonard Cohen once remarked: 'the kind of thing I like is that you write a song, and it slips into the world, and they forget who wrote it. And it moves and it changes, and you hear it again 300 years later, some women washing their clothes in a stream, and one of them is humming this tune.' While none of his songs might have achieved quite such broad popularity, his work has indeed proved curiously malleable to varied interpretation... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Zero-Dark-Thirty-Heroism-Torture-Propaganda.php The phrase Zero Dark Thirty is mysterious and ominous, but meaningless to anyone unfamiliar with the lingo of the United States Armed Forces. Kathryn Bigelow, director of the film with this title, explained on the CBS This Morning show that Zero Dark Thirty is a military term designating thirty minutes past midnight. Neither she nor screenwriter Mark Boal chose to reveal this meaning in the film, so moviegoers were left in the dark. That apparently was the desired effect... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/America-s-Kingdom.php Neo-mercantilism is alive and well 100 years later, as we see in the press, speeches in Congress, and in the recent US presidential debates, where promises of an elusive 'energy independence' echoed once more... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Masscult-and-Midcult-Essays-Against-the-American-Grain.php In 1960, Dwight Macdonald published 'Masscult and Midcult' in the Partisan Review. Here Macdonald introduced his distinction between what he called masscult—or what is more commonly labeled 'lowbrow'—and midcult, which we generally refer to as 'middlebrow.' He identified the characteristics of both forms of culture in America, contrasting them with what used to be known as culture, full stop, but what is today called high culture... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Phases-of-Marxism.php For the last quarter of a century we have been witnessing an understandable, although unsavoury, spectacle that can be called 'poisoning the wells.' Wells are poisoned in war so that no one should drink from them, and the victorious turbo-capitalism fears that Marxism might nonetheless raise one of its nine hydra heads again and obstruct the profitable democide and ecocide. That is why, to the reasonable contradictions that can (and must) be articulated within Marxism, tons of garbage are added in order to poison it. This article is, therefore, a minor act of hygiene... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/The-Popes-of-Egypt.php On November 18, 2012, history was made when Tawadros II was crowned the 118th Coptic Pope in a lineage that started around the year 49 CE, when Mark the Evangelist arrived in Alexandria... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Liars-and-Outliers-Bruce-Schneier.php Most of us recognize this: that it's not in our long-term best interest to act in our short-term self-interest. But not everyone does. That's why we need mechanisms to induce trust. That's why we need security. And that's what Liars and Outliers is about... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Virginia-Woolf-Buddhism-and-Hermione-Lee-Biography-of-the-Artist.php I've been reading Virginia Woolf since high school, and with more focus and intensity in the past five years. It was when I read The Waves for the first time, while living in Thailand and studying Buddhism, that I had an epiphany: not only was I a Buddhist, but Virginia Woolf was too! http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/An-Analysis-of-John-Donne-A-Poet-of-Death.php John Donne has engaged the minds of poets and literary critics for centuries, but what makes him so engaging? Is it the play and paradox of his verse, the audacity of his meter, the range of complexity with which he grapples the world around him? Whatever the case, Donne has proven to be a complex character... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Edgar-Allen-Poe-The-Narrative-of-Arthur-Gordon-Pym-of-Nantucket.php Let us now exhume the corpse of Edgar Allen Poe's The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket. I will bring this work into the light from the dark recessed dungeons of scholarly contention, steal its meaning from under the haughty upturned nose of self-indulgent and absurd origins. Pym is not about a man tapping into his right brain in search of... art (Canada), it's not about King Solomon and Jerusalem (Kopley), it is not about slavery or hell... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Super-Bowl-Sunday-on-the-Seine.php You can swallow the 'gout du bonheur' for only five Euros at L'as du fallafel in the Rue de Rosiers in the Marais in Paris. The taste of happiness... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/A-Re-Reading-of-Edmund-in-Shakespeare-King-Lear.php King Lear's Edmund surely ranks among the most despised figures of Shakespearean drama and is often held up as a villain par excellence. A close reading of I.ii and V.iii, however, reveals Edmund in a very different light... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Neil-LaBute-by-D-J-Lee.php Like his predecessors, LaBute creates characters who are psychologically damaged, but what distinguishes LaBute is his obsessive focus on misogyny. It's hard to find a LaBute play that doesn't feature a man who has cruelly dumped a woman and a woman who has never gotten over it. This is a problem if you accept that playwrights and directors dictate our literary tastes as much as they reflect them... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Justice-James-Clarke-Swervings-of-the-Heart.php When my wife Mary and I got married in 1961, the future looked golden. She gave up a promising career as a fashion illustrator to raise a family. I pursued a law career that culminated in my appointment to the bench in 1983. Our children were happy, healthy and bright... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Listening-to-Neil-Young-in-All-the-Wrong-Places-A-Southern-Rock-Memoir.php 'Stay out the way, it's a Southern Thing,' sings Patterson Hood of The Drive-By Truckers. Of course, Hood's is not the only voice warning that outsiders won't ever 'get' this 'Southern thing.' Plenty of insiders like me don't get it either. I love the Truckers, have all their records... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Montreal-Literary-Art-Events.php Dialogues with Rawi Hage at St. James United Church... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/American-Exceptionalism-American-Freedom.php Patriotism, to quote George Bernard Shaw, 'is your conviction that this country is superior to all others because you were born in it.' The same may be said of American exceptionalism... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Ethical-Lessons-of-the-Financial-Crisis.php It would be a serious error to think the financial crisis resulted from a glitch in the market for mortgage backed securities, or flaws in computer programs at credit rating agencies, or the failure of government regulators to read between lines of fine print... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/The-U-S-Saudi-Alliance-and-the-Changing-Dynamics-of-Oil.php The peculiar alliance between the United States and Saudi Arabia, forged during World War II and lubricated by oil, is being reshaped by dramatic shifts in global petroleum markets.Saudi Arabia's rulers and strategic planners in Washington still find each other useful, especially in confronting Iran, but they no longer need each other as they did in the past... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Syria-Thirty-Years-War.php Edward Luttwak: I don't know anyone willing to do anything about Syria in the sense of knocking off Assad, which we could do in one day of air strikes... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/The-Dream-House.php In an essay called 'Among the Ruins' about three twentieth-century writers, Bruce Chatwin writes, 'On the island of Capri there lived three narcissists who each built a house on the edge of a cliff. They were Axel Munthe, Baron Jacques Adelsward-Fersen and Curzio Malaparte. All three were writers of the self-dramatizing variety. All had a strong dose of Nordic sensibility. And all sought to expand their personalities in architecture...' http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/A-Jarry-Park-Education.php I made my Jarry Park debut at night, on a YMCA day-camp sponsored outing. The stadium felt alive, charged and vivid. The brilliant light towers, whose bulbs I tried to count, brought the grass, the warning track, and the white button-like bases into sharp relief. Night meant sophistication and excitement, an invitation to partake of the grown-up world... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Buckwild-and-Downton-Abbey-TVs-Social-Reality.php It's a long way, in geographical distance and creative quality, from the down and dirty world of MTV's reality show hit Buckwild to the rarefied world of U.S. public television's Downton Abbey, but the two TV series have one thing in common, apart from having their new season premieres within a week in January 2013. Both perpetuate social and class stereotypes... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Hey-Website-Makers-Shape-Up.php The other day, when stuck on a website dealing with my research area, global energy security, a thought hit me: am I website challenged--unable to navigate the increasingly complex internet sites on the Wild Wild Web...? http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Metropolis-Two-by-Chris-Burden.php The Los Angeles County Museum of Art is currently exhibiting Chris Burden's Metropolis II, a 20-by-30 foot, multi-storied installation circulating 1,100 toy cars about 100 times over 18 traffic ways at scale speeds of 230-240 mph each hour... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Invaiatura-Short-story-by-Joel-Burcat.php There's a word that the winemakers here use, it's 'invaiatura'-the moment when the grapes change color, they stop growing and begin ripening... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/The-Heart-Of-Florence.php It was Lee Leffert who convinced my parents that I should be taken seriously as an artist. He was the bachelor brother of the next-door neighbors on Tyne Boulevard in Nashville. Tall, athletic, and erudite, Lee visited his family once a year from the Midwest, where he was the founder and headmaster of an exclusive private school... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Lucky-Lady-Short-story-by-Stefanie-Levine-Cohen.php It's been fifteen years now that I've been changing the dining room chandelier light bulbs. Fifteen years of paying the bills and sitting in the driver's seat of the large blue Buick and cooking for one. Fifteen years since making the bed meant smoothing the covers and plumping the pillow on my side only... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Normal-Accidents-Living-with-High-Risk-Technologies.php The immense complexity of some industrial organizations and their tight internal connections occasionally allowed even some small local failures, inevitable in complex systems, to cascade through the system and bring it down. If the system also had catastrophic potential, perhaps it should not exist... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Global-Corruption-Money-Power-and-Ethics-in-the-Modern-World.php Recent scandals in Canada, laid bare by Quebec's Charbonneau Commission and the press, have shown how a tight network of city bosses, construction kings and political fund raisers can determine the award of major contracts and the financial power of political parties... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Crude-Awakenings-Global-Oil-Security-and-American-Foreign-Policy.php A recent report by the International Energy Agency concluded that the United States will displace Saudi Arabia as the world's largest oil producer by 2020. If that does occur, what would it mean for U.S. foreign policy? In particular, could America withdraw from the oil-rich Persian Gulf? http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Capital-Coercion-and-Post-Communist-States.php The post-communist transitions are over. Socialism's command economy was successfully dismantled, but unexpected and distorted forms of capitalism arose in its place, often of a thuggish character, more freebooter than free market. And, finally, the transitions gave rise to very different types of post-communist states, bearing little likeness to the ideal liberal state... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/The-Evolution-of-Great-World-Cities-Urban-Wealth-and-Economic-Growth-by-Christopher-Kennedy.php The historical evidence shows that cities progress through three early phases – as centres of commerce, centres of industry, and then transportation hubs – before becoming financial centres... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Machiavellian-intelligence-in-primates-and-Machiavelli.php Since death Niccolo Machiavelli has had a long career in the popular culture. His name spawned the adjective ‘Machiavellian' and the noun ‘Machiavellianism.' Not a week passes but that some journalist espies a Machiavellian and detects Machiavellianism in others... Machiavelli has also been conscripted into primatology – the study of monkeys and their kind. We argue that this use of Machiavelli's name does him an injustice. What do we want? We want primatologists to stop monkeying around with his name. To make our appeal to common decency we recount how Machiavelli, though no fault of his own, came to the planet of the apes. http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/The-Soviet-Union-Federation-or-Empire.php Few people in the West believed during the Cold War that the USSR was what its founders and leaders thought it to be. Lenin and Stalin designed it as a new type of federation – a union of ethnic nations or nation-states. Its Union Republics in their turn were also partitioned into ethnic homelands with varying levels of cultural autonomy... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Islamic-Capitalism-and-Finance-Origins-Evolution-and-the-Future.php For a millennium, from the seventh to the seventeenth century, Muslims controlled the intercontinental and transoceanic trade between Europe and the Indian Ocean. While doing this, they also created one of the greatest civilizations of the world. They owed this success to a unique economic system: Islamic capitalism... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Why-I-Emigrated-from-America.php Not long after I moved away from the United States, a college student was arrested in Louisiana for burning an American flag. He was protesting the extra-judicial killing of Osama bin Laden. As one might expect, a patriotic crowd soon gathered to protest the flag burning, and one of them was filmed on YouTube shouting, 'If you’re not proud to be an American, then get out!..' http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Eating-Angels.php Poetry in prose by Sarah A. Odishoo http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/What-is-Poetry.php To consider a question such as what is poetry, is tantamount to asking what art is, or what is music... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/war-photography.php The Museum of Fine Arts Houston's exhibition 'WAR PHOTOGRAPHY: Images of Armed Conflict and Its Aftermath' includes a photo of a dead man's lower limbs, stocking feet in loafers, the shot chopped off just above the ankles... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Best-of-2012-Social-and-Science.php Mark Pagel on the origins of the human social mind, Kent Flannery and Joyce Marcus on the creation of inequality, Melvyn L. Fein on human hierarchies, Michael Tomasello on cooperation, Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis on human reciprocity and its evolution, Marco Iacoboni on the science of how we connect with others, Simon Baron-Cohen on empathy and origins of cruelty, David Livingstone Smith on dehumanization, Alex Mesoudi on cultural evolution, Mel Thompson on how did I become Me http://www.themontrealreview.com/donate.php Dear Reader, Once a year we ask for your support. We need your help to continue publishing and promoting some of the world's best authors and their ideas. Presently, the revenue we receive is insufficient to make the Review a self-sustainable publication, so your help really matters. If you are able and wish to make a donation, please consult our 'Donations' page at: http://www.themontrealreview.com/donate.php We want to thank you for being with us. Your loyalty is what makes us happy, proud, and audacious to continue publishing. In 2013, we will try to keep the magazine interesting, informative, diverse, and useful. If you wish to suggest authors, topics, and ideas that you think deserve attention, please write to us at themontrealreview@gmail.com . Sincerely, The Montreal Review Team http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Why-Capitalism.php The critics of capitalism are wrong. As long as people value freedom and growth, some form of capitalism will remain the principal way to organize economies. Political choice will force deviations from time to time, but a free public will find its way back. Capitalism will remain our future. And because we are not perfect, our system will have flaws. Freedom will permit critics to voice their criticisms, successfully at times. http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Contending-Economic-Theories-Neoclassical-Keynesian-and-Marxian-Richard-Wolff-and-Stephen-Resnick.php In most societies, economic literacy encompassing the contending theories was neglected over recent decades in and by the one-sided curricula and particular theories prevalent in schools, media, business, and politics. We must now correct for that neglect... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Never-Forget-National-Humiliation-Historical-Memory-in-Chinese-Politics-and-Foreign-Relations.php For many, China can rise peacefully only after it has changed from a communist dictatorship to a multiparty democracy, where officials are chosen in regular elections. However, without liberation from the powerful complex of historical myth and trauma, I worry that a multiparty democracy could lead China into a dangerous development. This is because history and memory issues can be easily used by nationalist leaders as tools for mobilization or for generation of conflicts between a newly democratic China and its old enemies... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Articulating-the-Sinosphere-Sino-Japanese-Relations-in-Space-and-Time.php Pre-mid-nineteenth-century relations in East Asia were decidedly not based on a system of equal, interacting nation-states who contracted treaties regulating their political and economic intercourse. They were hierarchical with the ruling dynastic house on the mainland ('China') receiving visitors from the archipelago ('Japan') and from the many statelets along the peninsula ('Korea'), as well as elsewhere in the region. http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Socrates-and-the-Jews-Hellenism-and-Hebraism-from-Moses-Mendelssohn-to-Sigmund-Freud.php 'What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?' This famous cry of the early Christian Tertullian was answered in the nineteenth century with a resounding response of 'Everything!'... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Philosophers-in-the-Republic-Plato-Two-Paradigms-Roslyn-Weiss.php It is reasonably assumed that all philosophers in Plato's 'Republic' are the same, and yet, arguably, they are not... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/The-Official-History-of-Privatisation.php The lessons learned from the British privatization. David Parker on his Official History of Privatization http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Fiduciary-Law.php Some subjects 'grow on you.' They keep recurring in the materials you read, and the stories you hear. Perhaps these subjects crop-up because you think about them. For me, fiduciary law is one of these subjects. In early 1970s I worked on a treatise: The Regulation of Money Managers, focusing on investment advisers and mutual funds... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/The-Americans-Essay.php GLENN Miller is probably the University of Colorado's most famous alumnus. Up on a wall in the Glenn Miller Ballroom, scene of square dances sexier than all the tangos of Argentina, hangs a huge likeness of the man... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Visiting-Uncle-Shirley.php My Uncle Shirley left our home in Alabama as a Jewish salesman, and turned up in rural South Carolina as a Baptist preacher. Of course, we didn't realize that last fact until we heard it at his funeral eulogy. The rest of his life was shrouded in an even deeper mystery... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Pool-Short-Story.php Short Story by Matt Domino http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Jakub-Dolejs.php That a photographer's guile can make for a heady and instructive aesthetic experience is proved by the remarkable work of Jakub Dolejs. His ongoing practice of deception now encompasses some of the formal language of late Modernism, and his palette is almost hallucinatory in its clarity... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Pivotal-Decade-How-the-United-States-Traded-Factories-for-Finance-in-the-Seventies.php People trying to understand the Great Recession often look back to the Great Depression. Nevertheless, because the economy of the 1930s was self-contained, its dynamics are unlike those of the contemporary economy. A better way to understand the Great Recession is to link it with the recession of 1970s. http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/The-Founders-and-Finance-by-Thomas-K-McCraw.php The United States government started out on a shoestring and almost immediately went bankrupt. To fight its war of Independence from Britain, it borrowed from banks in Holland and wheedled large sums from France, Britain’s great rival... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Reckoning-With-Markets-The-Role-of-Moral-Reflection-in-Economics.php When Adam Smith promoted a market economy in the mid 18th century it was in the context of a moral theory that depended upon personal interaction. In those days the interests of small business entrepreneurs were best served by quality products and service for their customers who rewarded them with repeat business. In many areas of the market today the same strategy applies, but technology, shipping speed and the globalization of markets are testing the interpersonal foundation of trust upon which markets must depend... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/The-culture-of-dishonesty-and-the-importance-of-moral-behavior-in-economy.php What is so important about morality, especially in economics? And why is a culture of honesty crucial to the well-being of society? http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/The-God-Problem.php Criticisms arguing that religion is irrational have been voiced in recent years by writers such as Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Christopher Hitchens, and Sam Harris. How is it possible, they ask, for so many people who otherwise claim to be reasonable to be religious? How indeed? http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/The-Dao-of-the-Military-Liu-An-Art-of-War.php During the first century of the Han Dynasty (206 B.C.E.-220 C.E.), an imperial prince, Liu An (d. 122 B.C.E.), gathered together a group of scholars at his court in Huainan, in modern-day Anhui Province . He oversaw a large literary enterprise that produced numerous writings, one of which survives intact: the Huainanzi or Master of Huainan... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Yellowstone-Red-Summer.php It's been a splendid July day in Yellowstone. Cara and I have hiked through a blaze of wildflowers... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/In-Praise-of-Love.php Badiou's new definition of love, which is at the heart of his new book 'In Praise of Love', sounds like something very old, although stated in a novel way... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/The-Rise-and-Decline-of-a-Ponzi.php David Levy on Jeff Prosserman's film 'Chasing Madoff' http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/America-Love-Affair-with-Cars.php One of my most enduring childhood memories is when my father brought home a battery-operated car dashboard panel designed to simulate the experience of driving... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Parable-of-the-Seawall-by-Mathias-B-Freese.php An excerpt from 'This Mobius Strip of Ifs' by Mathias B. Freese http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Why-Is-Russia-So-Different.php Why Is Russia So Different? http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Quebec-election-result-analysis.php Marcel Martel: It was not a pro PQ vote. We know that more or less 69 percent of the population voted for a party other than the Liberals. I can't name a single political commentator who was not surprised by the outcome. I did not buy the argument that the Liberals would be destroyed. However, I was quite surprised that they managed to elect fifty members... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/The-Unintended-Reformation-How-a-Religious-Revolution-Secularized-Society.php Brad S. Gregory on his book 'The Unintended Reformation' http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Why-Religion-Is-Natural-and-Science-Is-Not.php Suggesting that natural science is unnatural and that religion, which traffics in the supernatural, is natural seems to turn things upside down. Sorting out these paradoxes, though, will offer insight about both enterprises... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Less-Than-Human-Why-We-Demean-Enslave-and-Exterminate-Others.php 'Less Than Human' is a book about dehumanization. It is widely recognized that dehumanization plays an important role facilitating acts of violence in genocide, war, and other forms of atrocity. Given this it is surprising to learn that scant attention has been paid to it in the scholarly literature. Scholarly literature on dehumanization is shockingly thin on the ground... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/US-Mexico-Cross-Border-Murder-and-Salvation.php Many Americans view Mexico as a nation of unrelenting bloodshed, where decapitated heads are rolled into nightclubs and mutilated corpses show up overnight on the roadside. Since 2006, when the government began its war on drug traffickers, more than 60,000 people have been killed. But Mexicans see their northern neighbor as awash in violence, too... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Keynes-vs-Hayek.php Today, the world faces another big economic challenge. The works and legacy of both Keynes and Hayek are explored once again, and once again we are not sure who of them gives us the right answer. Should we spend, as Keynes advised, since spending has brought us to the edge of financial collapse, or should we leave the economy to heal itself naturally, as Hayek believed, since deregulation caused the bankruptcy of the financial system? http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/The-New-Yorker-Short-Story-of-Short-Story.php What does it take to get into the New Yorker and what are the odds? http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Proconsuls-Delegated-Political-Military-Leadership-from-Rome-to-America-Today.php In his book 'Proconsuls: Delegated Political-Military Leadership from Rome to America Today' Carnes Lord argues that the old Roman imperial institution of proconsulship is still useful for America, but only if it is applied according the realities of the day. http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Sin-The-Early-History-of-an-Idea.php Malcolm Forbes on A.N.Wilson's book "The Elizabethans" http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Father-John-Misty-Josh-Tillman.php Matt Domino speaks with Josh Tillman (Father John Misty) http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/In-Aleppo.php David Levy speaks with Sakhr Al-Makhadhi http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Walls-by-Marcello-Di-Cintio.php In December 1999, hot with millennial fever and desperate to be somewhere 'important' when the clock turned on 2000, I traveled to Jerusalem. On Christmas Eve during that trip, I walked from Jerusalem to Bethlehem. The journey was far less biblically-epic than it sounds... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Losses-by-Robert-Wexelblatt.php An excerpt from Robert Wexelblatt's new book 'Losses' http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/The-Faith-of-the-Faithless.php The infinite ethical demand allows us to become the subjects of which we are capable by dividing us from ourselves, by forcing us to live in accordance with an asymmetrical and unfulfillable demand, say the demand to be Christlike, while knowing that we are all too human. Although we can be free of the limiting externalism of conventional morality, established law, and the metaphysics of traditional religion, it seems that we will never be free of that 'sordid necessity of living for others.' The latter requires an experience of faith, a faith of the faithless that is an openness to love, love as giving what one does not have and receiving that over which one has no power. http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Sin-The-Early-History-of-an-Idea.php The idea of ‘sin’ suits its times, argues Paula Fredriksen in her new book ‘Sin: The Early History of an Idea’. http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Reasoning-A-Social-Picture.php Anthony Simon Laden on his book 'Reasoning: A Social Picture' http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Animals-and-the-Human-Imagination.php The greatest breach in nature, philosopher William James wrote in 1890, 'is the breach from one mind to another...' http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/American-Utopia-and-Social-Engineering-in-Literature-Social-Thought-and-Political-History.php Review of Peter Swirski's 'American Utopia and Social Engineering in Literature, Social Thought, and Political History' http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Human-Hierarchies-A-General-Theory.php If human societies are to be modified in directions more people find fulfilling, this can only occur if the nature of human hierarchies is acknowledged and understood. This search is a worthy endeavor to which the social sciences ought apply themselves without committing to a preferred moral outcome... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Karl-Marx.php It is no doubt easier to imagine a world without Marx than a world without revolution, capitalism, communism and socialism. But in the world we actually inhabit, these still have to be seen through Marx... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Addicted-to-Profit-Reclaiming-Our-Lives-from-the-Free-Market.php It is one thing to strive to make a profit out of your skills and talents, something else entirely to indulge in profiteering or to assume that absolutely every area of your life must yield a financial profit... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Michael-Milburn-Poetry.php Three poems from Michael Milburn's new book 'Carpe Something' http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/the-Zionist-entity-and-the-Occupation.php In August 1967, soon after the Six Day War, the Arab League met in Khartoum, three nos the response to Israel's offer to trade land for peace: no negotiations, no recognition, no peace... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Novel-of-consciousness.php The contemporary novel has many tools available to it in order to construct its work. Novels are meant to create their own plausible and realistic worlds wherein events take place and characters develop. These stories are told from many perspectives, the third-person narrator perhaps still the most popular. However, the most intimate means of engagement in the novel might be the novel of consciousness, which narrates from within the protagonist's mind. http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Conquest-in-Space-Dreaming-about-Mars.php With NASA's latest efforts on Mars with the Curiosity rover, humanity is now bracing itself for the hope of finding life past, present or future, on a distant plant. Much of this is drivel, suggesting a continued obsession of humankind's 'inner child' ('We discover ourselves through discovering others') but the prospects are intriguing. Colonising Mars will enable us to export rapacity and problems and possibly unearth a few scientific gems on the way... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Spectres-of-Marx-Derrida.php Occupy Wall Street and the Politics of Deconstruction http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Rare-Earth-Metals-North-Korea-New-Trump-Card.php Paradoxically, the promise of Kim Jong-Il might soon come true and North Korea may become a 'rich and prosperous state' – rich in natural resources and empowered by nuclear technologies. http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Montreal-Church/index.php Photo Essay http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Macy-Gray.php An Interview With Grammy-Award winning singer-songwriter, Macy Gray. http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Sustaining-China-Economic-Growth-After-the-Global-Financial-Crisis.php There is a growing risk that China's economic growth could slow substantially in the medium term.  This would not be the so-called hard landing, which implies a near term sharp slowdown followed by a v-shaped recovery, but rather a prolonged period of slow growth perhaps something around 4 percent, the onset of which might be within two to three years... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Rational-Empires-Institutional-Incentives-and-Imperial-Expansion.php 'Imperialism' is an evocative word. It summons images of grim Roman legions marching through German forests, Maxim machine guns cutting down hordes of Dervishes at Omdurman, or scenes of torture from the classic French film 'Battle of Algiers.' These images share two attributes: they are noxious and they are historical – as Tennyson might describe them, 'portions and parcels of the dreadful past.' But is this, indeed, the case? http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Russia-Supports-North-Korea.php This year Russia experienced the return of the Kremlin veteran, Vladimir Putin, to the presidential seat. Although he is associated with political reaction and is concerned by the prospect of 'colour revolutions' at home, Russia is desperately running out of friends on the international stage...Belarus, Iran, the countries of Shanghai Cooperation Organization, and now North Korea, have all received special treatment from the increasingly anti-Western Russia http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/The-Copernican-Question-Prognostication-Skepticism-and-Celestial-Order.php In 1543, Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543) publicly defended the hypothesis that the earth is a planet and the sun a body resting near the center of a finite universe. But why did Copernicus make this bold proposal? And why did it matter? http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/The-Origins-of-Morality.php Many people, laypeople and scholars alike, assume that the kinds of dispositions that inevitably prevail in the process of biological evolution must be selfish and immoral, rendering humans and other animals bad by nature... However, this idea is misguided because there are significant differences between selfish genes and selfish individuals. http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/The-Poor-and-the-Perfect-The-Rise-of-Learning-in-the-Franciscan-Order.php In his Discourse on the 'Origins of Social Inequality,' Jean Jacques Rousseau identified private property, money and inheritance laws as the chief factors in the creation and maintenance of social inequality in European civilization. But his wisdom was incomplete. He would have benefited from reading the second 'Life of Francis of Assisi', written by Thomas of Celano in 1246... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Courage-The-Politics-of-Life-and-Limb.php Courage, I suggest, is the willingness to risk life and limb for the sake of something. In other words, courage reveals what we care about... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/The-Murder-of-the-Rosenbergs.php David Levy on the Rosenbergs and Walter Schneir's 'Final Verdict: What Really Happened in the Rosenberg Case' http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Oktoberfest-A-Stammtisch-Of-Thousands.php The German language has a word, 'Stammtisch,' that really has no English equivalent. The closest translation is something like 'a table reserved for regulars' or 'regular get-together.' http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/The-Olympics-the-politics-and-Baron-Pierre-de-Courbetin.php It all seemed incurably stained to begin with, though it began as an experiment made for moulding the human character. When looking at the record of the Olympics, a negative image emerges... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Dividing-day-at-the-Grand-Hotel-du-Cap-Ferrat.php Norman, my soon to be ex-husband, and I were sitting at opposite ends of the sofa like two prize fighters before a match... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Starbucks-in-the-University-Library-Short-story.php Short story by Cooper Sy http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Comprehending-Kings-Short-Story-Lee-Matthew-Goldberg.php Short story by Lee Matthew Goldberg http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/how-hsi-wei-became-a-vagabond.php Short story by Robert Wexelblatt http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Privatising-Passports.php A few years ago I flew back to Canada after many years in Europe. At Vancouver customs I noticed that the crowds were almost entirely Asian, and they all held out passports just like mine: dark blue, with elegant gold lettering that spelled out CANADA... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Horror-and-Movies.php When I watch horror today, I come to the films with a new set of experiences and from a different place than I did as a kid. When I watch Pet Sematary for the tenth time, it doesn't bother me that Gage gets put down at the end; that's his sleep, his release. What bothers me now are the adult fears, its representations of solitude, shame, and loss... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/The-Kentucky-Derby.php There is no place in the world like Churchill Downs on Derby Day. Yes, of course, strictly speaking, there is no place in the world just like any other on any given day... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/The-Creation-of-Inequality.php How did our ancestors convert the original level playing field to a stratified society? http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Stoic-Pragmatism.php The love affair of Western society with technology has reinforced its tendency to optimism. We believe that unhappiness is a curable condition and the application of intelligence will solve every problem... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/A-Prophetic-Peace-Judaism-Religion-and-Politics.php The inspiration to write 'A Prophetic Peace' came from my experiences as a soldier in the Second Lebanon War fought between Israel and the Hezbollah in the summer of 2006... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/A-Liberal-World-Order-in-Crisis-Choosing-between-Imposition-and-Restraint.php Georg Sorensen on the 'Liberal World Order' http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/The-Double-Paradox-of-Rising-Corruption-and-Rapid-Growth-in-China.php The three-decade old Chinese economic 'miracle' apparently has a dark side, one which seems to contradict current economic orthodoxy which posits that rising corruption depresses growth rates and slows development... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Why-We-Hate-Politics-But-Love-Democracy.php Steven Bilakovics: Democratic politics, the citizen's practice of arguing together, comes in turn to seem oddly out of place in democratic society. http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Making-Sense-of-the-Republican-American-Presidential-Primary.php Stanley A. Renshon on the politics and policies of the United States http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Serbia-New-President-A-Nationalist-Yes-but-a-Democrat-Too.php Serbia is headed down the drain-again. Or so the analysts would have you believe. The surprising defeat of Serbia's Western-oriented, pro-reformist President Boris Tadic (47.31%), by the former arch nationalist, Tomislav Nikolic (49.54%) in the presidential elections held on May 20, set forth the predictable tsunami of doom and gloom scenarios... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Power-Rules-How-Common-Sense-Can-Rescue-American-Foreign-Policy-Leslie-Gelb.php Leslie Gelb: Foreign policy is commonsense, not rocket science. http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/The-Soul-of-the-Greeks-An-Inquiry.php Excerpted from 'The Souls of the Greeks: An Inquiry' by Michael Davis http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/On-the-Importance-of-the-Ottoman-Straits.php The Russian Origins of the First World War http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Flags-over-the-Warsaw-Ghetto-The-Untold-Story-of-the-Warsaw-Ghetto-Uprising.php On Moshe Arens's 'Flags Over the Warsaw Ghetto' http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Morality-and-the-Movies-Reading-Ethics-Through-Film-Daniel-Shaw.php Excerpt from 'Morality and the Movies: Reading Ethics Through Film' http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/The-Serpent-and-the-Lamb-Cranach-Luther-Reformation.php Cranach, after God, became Luther's 'senior adviser' in the unfolding of the Protestant Reformation... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Paul-Simon-Graceland.php It was an album that spawned theses in paper churning departments. It infuriated, puzzled and confused... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/The-Wizard-of-Oz-Remains-a-Symbol-Of-Social-Progress.php Today, Oz is known by practically everyone in the world, but only a rare person is familiar with the artists who wrote its great songs... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Pale-Horse-Pale-Rider-The-Selected-Stories-of-Katherine-Anne-Porter.php Malcolm Forbes on Katherine Anne Porter's work http://themontrealreview.com/2009/Starbucks-in-the-University-Library-Short-story.php Short story by Cooper Sy http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/The-Future-of-Power-Joseph-Nye.php Foreign and domestic policy become difficult to disentangle. Contrary to the current conventional wisdom about the advantages of authoritarian states, American soft power and its open society may actually give the country new power advantages in the twenty-first century. http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Tocqueville-Discovery-of-America.php Alexis de Tocqueville is often quoted as a sort of Olympian oracle, lofty and impersonal... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Leo-Strauss-and-the-Conservative-Movement-in-America.php German Jewish refugee Leo Strauss (1899-1973) exercised as much influence on his discipline and on American society as any other political thinker in the second half of the twentieth century... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Isaiah-Berlin-The-Soviet-Mind-Russian-Culture-under-Communism.php Isaiah Berlin believed that ideas matter, not just as products of the intellect but as producers of systems, guides to overnance, shapers of policy, inspirations of culture and engines of history... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Isaiah-Berlin-Essays-on-Soviet-Russia-culture.php Henry Hardy's introduction to the Isiah Berlins's essays on the culture in Soviet Union http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Troubled-Times-Responses-from-the-Ecological-Left.php A review of 'Filthy Lucre: Economics for People Who Hate Capitalism' and 'Plenitude: The Economics of True Wealth' http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Evolution-and-Belief-Confessions-of-a-Religious-Paleontologist.php Many scientists are religious, and consider their beliefs to be entirely rational... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/In-Praise-of-Reason.php Imagine that a mysteriously powerful scientist offers you choice between two doors... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Katherine-Mansfield-The-Garden-Party.php In a paper I wrote on Katherine Mansfield's 'The Garden Party,' I think in the late-nineties, I started by presenting, in brief, the following facts and numbers... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Female-Empowerment-in-Uganda.php Coaching female empowerment to the field in the aftermath of Joseph Kony http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Walking-and-Bicycling-to-Health.php During a recent trip across western Europe by train, my frequent companions were the many strangers, visible outside my train window, who could be seen traversing a vast network of bike paths and walking trails that crisscross the cities and countryside. Europeans of all ages, including seniors, can be seen pedaling from home to town and back again with their daily bread in their handlebar baskets... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/O-Marieville-on-Montreal-Quebec-culture-and-history-change.php David Levy on Montreal's past and present http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/The-Station-Athos-Treasure-and-Men-Robert-Byron.php Robert Byron’s 'The Road to Oxiana' was a smashing success, but was his other great book on The Great Game, the severely neglected 'lost' classic 'The Station,' in some ways even better? http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Miss-America-Winners-List-from-1921-to-2012.php The fates and the fortunes of Miss America winners from 1921 to 2012. Painting: 'Reclamation' by Brat Kunkle http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Mad-Men-Dark-Shadows.php Matt Domino's Mad Men Reviews http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Opportunity-Cost-short-story-by-Kelly-Stanton.php Short story by Kelly Fordon. http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/The-Organizing-Principles-Behind-Economy-Complex-Systems.php It sounds paradoxical, but today it appears that we understand more about the universe than our society... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/How-Enemies-Become-Friends-The-Sources-of-Stable-Peace.php The role of diplomacy in international relations http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Political-Religion-and-Totalitarian-Ideology.php In his Essays Moral, Literary, and Political, David Hume argued that it is not possible for a competitive political party to "support itself without a philosophical or speculative system of principles annexed to its political or practical one..." http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Barack-Obama-personality-and-the-politics-of-redemption.php Stanley A. Renshon’s psychological portrait of the President Barack Obama and the sources of his policy of redemption. http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/The-Arc-of-War-Origins-Escalation-and-Transformation.php On the origins, escalation and future of war. http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Jared-Loughner-and-American-Violence.php On the night of January 7th, 2011, Jared Lee Loughner, twenty-two, checked into a Motel 6 in Tucson, Arizona. He then dropped off a roll of film containing pictures of himself in a red g-string, a gun to his bare ass. Loughner retrieved these photos that same night... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/The-Last-Lingua-Franca-English-Until-the-Return-of-Babel.php The End of English as World Language? http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/The-Brain-and-the-Meaning-of-Life.php An optimistic theory of natural mind http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/American-and-French-relationship-history-and-politics.php Are the French really so anti-American? http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Cultural-Revolution-the-Legacy-of-the-1960s-and-Intellectuals.php Richard Wolin on his book The Wind from the East http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/EU-European-Identity-and-the-Future-of-Europe.php Neil Fligstein on the future of European political integration. http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Puritans-Pilgrims-and-creation-of-American-republicatism.php Michael P. Winship on the sources of American republicanism. http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Post-Soviet-Russia.php David Levy's reportages from post-communist Russia http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/The-Relentless-Revolution-A-History-of-Capitalism-Joyce-Appleby.php David Levy's reportages from post-communist Russia http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Lyonel-Feininger-at-Montreal-Museum-of-Fine-Arts.php For an exhibition like Lyonel Feininger: From Manhattan to the Bauhaus, the greatest danger isn't incoherence, or sprawl, or over-ambition. It's that everything might cohere a little too methodically. In this eighty or so years of artistic activity--an eighty years that included forays into painting, cartooning, photography, musical composition, and toy design--Feininger displayed a versatility and adaptability that even the most involved showcase might not effectively capture... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Mad-Men-Signal-30.php Matt Domino's Mad Men Reviews - Episode 4 http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/The-Meaning-Of-Children-by-Beverly-Akerman.php I'd always thought I'd be a writer some day... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Believing-Cedric1.php As individuals, we make up our own abridged histories. When at a pub or a dinner party, we have a kind of condensed bio that we like to spout off when meeting new people, a single sentence we utter in order to quickly and efficiently convey our story... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/The-Church-in-Montreal-Today.php 50 years after the Quiet Revolution. Photo Essays by Mark Lavorato http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Economic-Origins-of-Dictatorship-and-Democracy-by-Daron-Acemoglu-and-James-Robinson.php If you start in the city center of Nogales Santa Cruz and walk south for a while, at some point you see houses become much more run down, streets turn decrepit. You have crossed the Mexican border into Nogales, Sonora. Though the two cities are made of the same cloth and were once united, now there are sharp differences between the two... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/The-Clash-of-Ideologies-Middle-Eastern-Politics-and-American-Security-by-Mark-L-Haas.php Ideologies consistently had major effects on leaders' core international perceptions and policies. Most importantly, ideologies went a long way toward determining leaders' understandings of which states were likely to threaten and which states were likely to support their core domestic and international interests. Ideologies, in short, to a great extent determined leaders' perceptions of likely enemies and allies... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/The-International-Relations-of-the-Persian-Gulf.php The eyes of the world have rightly been focused since the beginning of 2011 on the popular upheavals in the Arab world. Leaders have been deposed in three Arab countries, very possibly in a fourth (Yemen, where President Ali Abdallah Saleh has resigned but remains in the country) and Bashar al-Asad hangs on against the most serious challenge to his family's rule since it began in 1970... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/The-Globalization-Paradox-Democracy-and-the-Future-of-the-World-Economy-by-Dany-Rodrik.php The world has seen globalization collapse once already. The gold standard era–with its free trade and free capital mobility–came to an abrupt end in 1914 and could not be resuscitated after World War I. Could we witness a similar global economic breakdown in the years to come?... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/The-Relentless-Revolution-A-History-of-Capitalism-Joyce-Appleby.php Where the Capitalist Dynamic has Brought Us... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/What-is-Left-of-the-Left-Democrats-and-Social-Democrats-in-Challenging-Times.php When the “great recession” hit in September, 2008, it seemed that an era had ended. Since the 1980s, if not before, a pro-market consensus had governed economic policy-making and constrained political options in the advanced countries. For three decades serious politics had been about relying upon markets rather than the state to generate growth and, to that end, extending the reach and remit of market forces... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Re-Forming-Capitalism-Institutional-Change-in-the-German-Political-Economy.php My book recounts the transformation of the German political economy after the end of the postwar growth period in the 1970s... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/10-Steps-to-Repair-American-Democracy-A-More-Perfect-Union.php Excerpt from the Introduction to "10 Steps to Repair American Democracy: A More Perfect Union, 2012 Election Edition" by Steven Hill http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Lincoln-and-the-Politics-of-Christian-Love.php Every Lincoln scholar is familiar with the perhaps apocryphal story told by Henry Champion Deming, a member of the Connecticut Congress, about the president's understanding of Christianity... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Les-Nouveaux-Cavaliers-de-l-Apocalypse-par-Jean-Pierre-Filiu.php Depuis que Mahmoud Ahmadinejad a été élu président de la République islamique d'Iran, en juin 2005, ses provocations fort peu diplomatiques ont défrayé la chronique internationale. Sa volonté d'effacer Israël de la carte du monde ou son encouragement au programme nucléaire ont nourri les angoisses légitimes et les spéculations stratégiques... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Korean-war-and-American-policy-in-East-Asia.php Bruce Cumings on his books "The Korean War: A History" and "Dominion from Sea to Sea: Pacific Ascendancy and American Power" http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Soviet-Espionage-in-Canada-The-Fred-Rose-Affair.php In the summer of 1943 Fred Rose, a candidate for the Labour Progressive Party, a communist party alias, was elected to the Canadian parliament in a by election in the federal constituency of Cartier, back then a working class district in the heart of Montreal... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Russia-Presidential-Election-democracy-tradition-and-history.php Russia's 2012 presidential election follows the controversial parliamentary poll in December last year which resulted in the declared victory of the ruling United Russia party, albeit with a reduced majority. The December election was notable not for its largely predictable outcome, but for the eruption of the mini Arab-Spring style protest against alleged vote rigging and the reactions that followed... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/The-Canadian-pivot-to-China.php Ever since Goldman Sach's coined the term BRICS to describe the rising economic power of Brazil, Russia, India and China, it has been clear that the twenty-first century will see a radical redistribution of power from the West to the rest of the world, who are not only catching up in terms of development, but may well soon overtake the West... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/The-Matter-of-Mind-Reason-and-Experience-in-the-Age-of-Descartes-by-Christopher-Braider.php Christopher Braider: "The Matter of Mind: Reason and Experience in the Age of Descartes" challenges the universal presumption that the decisive turning point in early modern Western literary and intellectual culture was what Richard Rorty has called the dualist ‘invention of the mind.' ... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Red-Road-movie.php Red Road is a movie which uses visuality to create the sensation of touch and most of the time leads the viewer to associate the visual material with sensations of the “haptic”... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Kollontai-fashion-collection.php Interview with fashion designer Gabrielle Tousignant http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Photo-essay-street-photograpy-Mark-Lavorato.php Photography http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/North-Korea-totalitarian-succession-by-Bruce-Cumings.php When Kim Jong Il died on December 17th, I was lucky to be in Singapore. That way I could watch from a salutary distance the froth and drivel that passed for expert American commentary: How can his callow son expect to grapple with octogenarian leaders in the powerful military—won't there be a coup? http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Looking-for-Balance-by-Steve-Chan.php Steve Chan: If balance-of-power theory is correct, one should see China's neighbors and other major powers reacting to its rise in the manner predicted. They have not so far, thus presenting an enigma to realism. http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Casualities-of-credit-by-Carl-Wennerlind.php In 1696, Sir Isaac Newton left Cambridge for London, putting his scientific and alchemical pursuits temporarily on hold to assume the position of Warden of the Royal Mint. His main responsibility was to investigate and prosecute crimes against the English currency... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/How-Intelligence-Happens-by-John-Duncan.php Perhaps humanity is overly narcissistic, but few problems are so fascinating to us as our own, complex and intelligent minds. For over a century, debates have raged over so-called intelligence tests, used in schools, in armies, and in the offices of clinical psychologists—what do such tests mean? what do they miss? can a single score capture any of the richness of human nature and talent?... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Cultural-Evolution-How-Darwinian-Theory-Can-Explain-Human-Culture-and-Synthesize-the-Social-Sciences.php Charles Darwin is rightly celebrated for providing, in The Origin of Species, the first workable scientific theory to explain the stunning diversity and complexity of life on earth... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/The-Sources-of-Intentionality-by-Uriah-Kriegel.php ‘The aim of philosophy,' the great American philosopher Wilfred Sellars once wrote, ‘is to understand how things in the broadest possible sense of the term hang together in the broadest possible sense of the term.'... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/A-Regional-Christ-the-Folk-Saint-Gaucho-Gil.php All over Argentina, his small shrines can be found along roadsides. They are often ramshackle, little more than a crate containing a statue. Sometimes they are painted red or festooned with red ribbons and cloth... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Betty-Shamieh.php Betty Shamieh: Being connected to two cultures, particularly two cultures that are sometimes at war, gives one insight into what is common about all human beings... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/You-comma-Idiot-book-by-Doug-Harris.php "I wrote a book for myself to read. One I would be sure to finish. Now what's left to be seen is whether others feel the same way." http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Keith-Miller-Pine-Hill.php Interview with Keith Miller http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Duy-Fashion-Designer-Interview.php Interview with Montreal's fashion designer Duy Nguyen http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Jacks-Room.php My three brothers, eighteen, sixteen, and fourteen years my senior, lived away from home for most of my childhood. Our interaction was limited to their week-end visits to our parents' house, or the occasional longer stay when they would reoccupy their rooms during intervals between schools or apartments... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/In-Wonderland.php In 1991, I left graduate school to take a position teaching in the English department at Northwest College in Powell, Wyoming, a small agricultural town in the Bighorn Basin east of Yellowstone National Park... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/I-will-find-you-a-wheelbarrow.php Camp Nominingue is a residential wilderness camp in the Laurentians, four hours north of Montreal. Founded in 1925 by the Van Wagner family, and set on 400 acres on the shores of Lac Nominingue, the summer camp is based on the belief that the self-esteem of young boys grows the longer they live in tents and go on canoe trips... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/The-Herb-Selected-Poems-by-Aisa-Alyasiri.php A rare, if not unique, pastoral voice in contemporary Iraqi Arabic poetry, Aisa Alyasiri (residing currently in Canada) was born in 1942 in a village near the city of Amarah in southern Iraq... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Steven-Mayoff-Poetry.php Poetry by Steven Mayoff http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Is-America-the-New-Rome.php On he similarities between the rise of the American state and power and the upsurge of Roman Republic http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Phoebe-and-Edgar-in-the-garden-of-America.php There's an elderberry tree between my house and Edgar's house, in the wash filled with desert grass... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/An-art-student-manifesto.php My friends and classmates: You may ask yourselves why I have gathered you here today. It has not been long since we last convened; indeed we met only yesterday on the sixteenth of November, a day in many ways like any other... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/The-couple.php There was always a feeling of surprise, even after six months, at the diminutive size of the office... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/A-swim-matt-domino.php The wedding was over, so Nick and Stephen decided to stop at the ravine. Nick had heard about it while he was working on a house outside of Waterbury... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/The-Character-of-Russia-by-David-Satter.php For centuries, the Russian traveler, crossing the border, felt an inexplicable lightness, as if an unseen burden had been lifted from his shoulders... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/State-Building-in-Putin-Russia-Policing-and-Coercion-After-Communism-by-Brian-Taylor.php Politics have returned to Russia, with a vengeance. The contested December 2011 parliamentary elections, which were supposed to be an inconsequential stepping stone on Vladimir Putin's triumphant return to the presidency and the Kremlin, instead gave birth to a serious challenge to the ruling regime... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/The-Crisis-of-Russian-Democracy-The-Dual-State-Factionalism-and-the-Medvedev-Succession.php Few of the modernisation tasks facing Vladimir Putin when he came to power in 2000 have been resolved. Indeed, many of the challenges facing the country after Stalin's death in 1953 still remain on the agenda... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Soviet-Fates-and-Lost-Alternatives-by-Stephen-Cohen.php "Truth in reviewing: Steve Cohen was my teacher in graduate school at Princeton and has remained a friend ever since. I don't think, however, that this is the reason I mostly agree with his version of events. I may disagree with this or that interpretation of particular events, but overall this is one of the first books I would put into the hands of someone who wanted to get a good sense of what the Soviet Union was all about." http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Arab-Spring-Islam-and-Democracy.php The ongoing process of revolutionary change in the Middle East and North Africa may not have spent all its potential force yet, but even this far, it has altered the world attitude to the region and its political folk culture. In particular, the outcome of the uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya seem to have dented the claim that the popular alternative to regional dictatorships has to be Islamic fundamentalist regimes bent on suicide bombing the West and depriving the indigenous intelligentsia of the few personal freedoms they enjoy. The notion, still a favourite line of defence of some of the remaining regional dictators, is in fact a relatively recent invention of Islamic extremists who contend that “true Islam” is inherently incompatible with democratic values and institutions... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Alaa-Al-Aswany-On-the-State-of-Egypt I first saw Alaa Al Aswany's On the State of Egypt sitting in a bookstore in the U.S. in July 2011. The ‘revolution,' as we were still calling it—‘uprisings' is the more popular term now —was only six months old... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Winter-in-Kazakh-steppe.php TKazakhstan's capital Astana is renowned for its futuristic and eclectic (or ostentatious and jumbled, depending on one's aesthetic) architecture. It also has a more dubious distinction: it's the second coldest capital city in the world. Other cities in northern Kazakhstan are just as chilly. With temperatures often below minus 30 Celsius, David Mould, who teaches media studies at Ohio University, had plenty of time to reflect on the coldest winter of his life during his Fulbright Fellowship in Kazakhstan... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Central-Asia-Frequent-Flyer-by-David-Mould.php When the Soviet Union broke up 20 years ago, its national airline Aeroflot suffered the same fate. From Baku to Bishkek, Tallinn to Tashkent, the governments of cash-strapped new republics seized the aircraft sitting on the tarmac, repainted them in the new national colors and hoped they could round up enough spare parts to keep them flying... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Mirroring-People-The-Science-of-Empathy-and-How-We-Connect-with-Others-by-Marco-Iacoboni.php Imagine you are out and about, perhaps doing some shopping, or planning an evening at the movies with friends. Lots of people are around you, coming and going, all busy with their own plans. You look at them, they look at you. Where do you think they are looking, when they look at you?.. http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/The-Myth-of-Choice-Personal-Responsibility-in-a-World-of-Limits-by-Kent-Greenfield.php We may be quite aware of various ways we are constrained in life–biology, social norms, authority–but one area we are told embodies robust, unlimited choice is the free market... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Thrift-and-Thriving-in-America-Capitalism-and-Moral-Order-from-the-Puritans-to-the-Present.php Until recently, the word "thrift" had largely disappeared from the active vocabulary of most Americans. Like chastity and temperance, thrift was well on its way to becoming a virtue relic of a bygone era... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Marx-and-Alienation-Essays-on-Hegelian-Themes-Sean-Sayers.php Alienation is a pervasive but puzzling feature of modern life. It is one of the few theoretical terms from Marxism that has entered into ordinary language... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/States-of-War-Enlightenment-Origins-of-the-Political-by-David-Bates.php States of War addresses one of the most pressing concerns of modern democratic states: how to reconcile the foundational drive to defend the nation with the principles of law and civic rights?.. http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Why-Think-Evolution-and-the-Rational-Mind-by-Ronald-de-Sousa.php Humans, it has been said since Aristotle, are rational animals. Those who scoff at the phrase misunderstand it as contrasting with irrationality. But the proper contrast is with the non- rational, or arational. Inanimate objects are arational, because it makes no sense to tax them with irrationality. Humans are rational precisely because we are capable of irrationality... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/The-Ethical-Project-by-Philip-Kitcher.php Philip Kitcher: "We became fully human when we were able to find ways of inhibiting tendencies to socially disruptive action, ways of reinforcing our altruistic capacities..." http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Rationality-and-Religious-Commitment-by-Robert-Audi.php Why should there be yet another book in the philosophy of religion, and why should I in particular write one? Rationality and Religious Commitment has grown from a great deal of my work on both these topics... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/The-Stoics-and-the-Epicureans-on-Friendship-Sex-and-Love.php Ancient philosophy - especially after Aristotle - largely focused on how to achieve self-sufficiency on the one hand, and peace of mind on the other; it thus became fundamentally therapeutic, in nature and goal... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/The-essay-Toward-a-New-Narrative-Nonfiction.php The essay is perhaps the most accessible and democratic of all forms of writing. All it requires is a thesis and a discussion; the rest is up to the authors to present creatively their ideas and arguments... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Russia-Elections-Vladimir-Putin-Democracy-Derailed-Steve-Fish.php Russia's parliamentary elections conform to well-established patterns of arbitrary exclusion of opposition candidates and intimidation and manipulation of opposition forces. Given the exclusion, cooptation, and intimidation of oppositionists in Russia, many people who might be inclined to compete for office in more open polities simply do not choose to do so in Russia. Thus, we cannot know for sure who would have contested these elections if Russia had a more open system... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Iran-and-Republican-Presidential-Candidates.php In U.S. presidential politics the “threat” of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's Iran has emerged as a potent political issue comparable to Saddam Hussein's Iraq and “weapons of mass destruction” (WMD ) in the period leading up to the invasion of Iraq in March 2003... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Superstition-as-Ideology-in-Iranian-Politics-From-Majlesi-to-Ahmadinejad-by-Ali-Rahnema.php Ali Rahnema on his new book "Superstition as Ideology in Iranian Politics: From Majlesi to Ahmadinejad": "Majlesism as a religio-political ideology is based on two axial premises. First, that the human mind is defective and subsequently incapable of addressing and resolving everyday problems. Second, that in the absence of the common folk's ability to make correct and worthy decisions, society requires the leadership of a King and/or of a religious jurist with a connection to the hidden world..." http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Blue-notes-in-black-and-white-by-Benjamin-Cawthra.php The music came first, then the photographs. But what images they are: a sculptural Dexter Gordon bathed in cigarette smoke... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Michelangelo-the-artist-the-man-and-his-times-by-William-Wallace.php Michelangelo Buonarroti is universally recognized to be among the greatest artists of all time... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/The-Gospel-of-Thomas-and-Christian-Origins.php André Gagné: "The Gospel of Thomas is not a “heretical” writing and should not be placed under the modern category of Gnosticism. Like the traditional New Testament writings, Thomas is also concerned with the reception and transmission of the words and teachings of Jesus..." http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Gravity-ghost-scientific-discovery-in-the-21-century-by-Harry-Collins.php How do scientists decide they have discovered something? Gravity's Ghost is a detective story about a potential discovery called 'the Equinox Event'. At the same time, it's an investigation of the nature of science... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Capitalism-A-Very-Short-Introduction-by-James-Fulcher.php One way or another capitalism will continue on its crisis-prone way, the solution to one crisis begetting another. There is no final crisis and no final solution to crisis... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Max-Frisch.php One hundred years ago Max Frisch was born in Zurich. He died twenty years ago in the same city. In between he got out and travelled widely, and in 1952 lived in the US and Mexico on a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation. His journeying shaped his writing, both novels and plays, providing exotic settings but also locales deliberately far removed from his birthplace... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Death-book-by-Todd-May.php Each of us will die. Sooner or later, each of you reading this words, as well as I who write them, will be dead. This fact about us affects our lives perhaps more profoundly than any other fact about us... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Gustav-Klimt-the-kiss.php I have never seen a painting as tender and vibrant as Gustav Klimt's oil on canvas painting, “The Kiss.” To me, “The Kiss,” circa 1907-08, enacts a perfect transaction between two people with hearts so full of love that the world around them bursts in flamboyant, colorful life... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/A-cooperative-species-human-reciprocity-and-its-evolution-by-Bowles-and-Gintis.php Cooperation was prominent among the suite of behaviors that marked the emergence of behaviorally modern humans in Africa... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/The-last-superstition-a-refutation-of-the-new-atheism-Edward-Feser.php The central contention of the “New Atheism” of Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris, and Christopher Hitchens is that there has for several centuries been a war between science and religion... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/On-ceasing-to-be-human.php Ceasing to be human is a fugitive event; it can't be captured by a single narrative or conceptual context. Perhaps the proper way to pursue the matter is by way of historical inquiries into the forms and occasions of its appearance... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Portraits-and-persons-by-Cynthia-Freeland.php As a philosopher I ask different questions about portraits than art historians... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Starring-New-York-filming-the-crime-and-the-glamour-of-the-long-1970s.php I began researching Starring New York before I finished my prior book, Cowboys as Cold Warriors. In that book I considered a group of film westerns in their relationships to U. S. Cold War culture and politics from the late 1940s to the early 1960s. As I developed that project, I saw how those narratives... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/How-monopoly-took-over-a-sport.php The summer of 2011 marked 20 years since Dance Smartly, a magnificent Canadian 3-yr-old filly, cake-walked down the home stretch of Woodbine racetrack in Toronto... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/The-Last-Lion.php Short story by B. Newmark http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Guelph-in-the-afternoon.php To tell the truth. To remain within nodding distance of the facts, which run away from you effortlessly. To drive after them living people, who are much more unwilling and in the end disappointing than imaginary ones, who can show up anywhere, adopt any pose, pull off speeches of shattering brevity, and do not lie to you... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/The-first-heartbreak.php My mother had her favorites: dark chocolate, lightly salted cashews, Joyce Carol Oates, Neil Diamond, silver jewelry, Shalimar perfume, black coffee, red wine, the Chicago Cubs... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Poetry-Lauren-Nicole-Nixon.php Poetry by L.N.Nixon http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Borges-and-Calvino-Race-for-Blood-Sausage.php On a hot summer day in 1967, the blind and infirm Jorge Luis Borges challenged his healthier and much younger protégé, Italo Calvino... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/I-was-16-Rwanda.php I was 16 in 1994. I remember I had a crush on a girl at my high school named Stacy... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Poets-Corner.php First let me tell you what I'm not referring to. I'm not referring to that section of the South Transept of Westminster Abbey where poets, playwrights and writers from Chaucer to Hughes are buried or commemorated under plaques or white marble busts... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/The-Strange-Non-Death-of-Neoliberalism-by-Colin-Crouch.php The viability of western democracy is now being put to a severe test: can the economic crisis be tackled in a way that recognizes the situation of the great majority of the population, or must the interests of the banks who caused the crisis in the first place through their irresponsible use of secondary markets always be privileged?... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/One-Illness-Away-by-Anirudh-Krishna.php Is it possible to prevent or forestall poverty? http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/The-Institutional-Revolution.php Book review http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Red-Star-Over-Iraq-by-Johan-Franzen.php To many people hearing the phrase Middle East politics, and in particular Iraqi politics, conjures up images of sectarian strife, tribal and clan loyalties, and persecution of ethnic minorities... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Tunisia-success-heralds-a-testing-time-for-Egypt.php Tunisians made history on October 23rd this year by taking part in the regions first free and fair elections that were held in the backdrop of the Arab Spring... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Inner-rhythm.php Gabriel Hunt filched one of the stuffed grape leaves his wife, Caroline, had made for the dinner-dance tonight... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/The-stranger-in-the-snow.php After Jodie Johnston left Nevada with Johnny on his bus, she called from hotels the mornings after shows, excited and eager to report... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Inuit-art-of-Ruben-Komangapik.php “When I'm lost in my art – I'm at home,” says Ruben Anton Komangapik, contemporary Inuit artist... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Art-and-process-with-Noa-Kaplan.php Robin Tung interview with the media artist and designer Noa Kaplan http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Coco-Chanel-by-Linda-Simon.php Even people with little interest in high fashion know the name Chanel—a name synonymous with sophistication and glamour... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/On-art-for-arts-sake.php 'Art for art's sake' is a much misunderstood phrase. In the public imagination it is invariably the oriflamme of Decadents and Aesthetes... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/The-dialectics-of-seeing-Walter-Benjamin-and-the-Arcades-Project.php A Review on Susan Buck Morss' “The Dialectics of Seeing: Walter Benjamin and the Arcades Project” http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Contracting-peacekeeping-operations-to-the-private-sector.php For as long as humans have fought wars, there have been those willing to kill, and to risk their lives, for profit... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/The-science-of-evil-by-Simon-Baron-Cohen.php When we try to explain acts of human cruelty, there is no scientific value in the term 'evil' but there is scientific value in using the term 'empathy erosion'... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/The-last-utopia-by-Samuel-Moyn.php The Last Utopia assesses how deeply rooted in history the notion of “international human rights” is... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Depth-an-account-of-scientific-explanation-Michael-Strevens.php Humanity's single greatest achievement is, perhaps, to understand something about the way that the world really works... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Libya-the-future-of-a-revolution.php Although revolutionary forces succeeded in capturing the main urban centers of Libya and killing Muammar Gaddafi, the ultimate outcome of the civil war is far from certain. Is conflict really at an end? http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/About-to-die-book-review-by-Barbie-Zelizer.php Death has long been seen as the ultimate equalizer, yet its depiction in the news takes shape across unequal parameters... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/William-Lychack-Poetry.php Poetry by William Lychack http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/The-struggle-for-power-in-Syria-Nikolaos-van-Dam.php Bashar al-Asad is not going to sign his own death warrant. A scenario of reconciliation South African style does not seem to be possible... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Dignity-the-essential-role-it-plays-in-resolving-conflict-Donna-Hicks.php While we all have a deep and abiding desire to be treated well and to be recognized as worthy, our lack of awareness and understanding of the many ways we routinely violate each other's dignity is wreaking havoc on our lives and our relationships... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/The-real-real-thing-Wendy-Steiner.php Any creation story is a story about models, for as King Lear reminds us, “Nothing can come of nothing..." http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/The-poverty-of-Clio-Boldizzoni.php Since the 1970s, economics has entered a phase of aggression toward the other social sciences that is defined by its own creators as “economic imperialism..." http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Conservatism-Kieron-OHara.php Defining conservatism is surprisingly hard... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/A-book-forged-in-hell-Steven-Nadler.php The Theological-Political Treatise was regarded by Spinoza's contemporaries as the most dangerous book ever published... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Psychology-and-Catholicism.php Relationships between sciences and religions are a thorny issue in our day... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/The-protestant-ethic-and-the-spirit-of-capitalism.php The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism by Max Weber is one of the world's most famous studies in social science, competing for the first place with works such as Capital by Karl Marx and Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Travel-and-habit-in-Merleau-Ponty-and-Proust.php Travel and Habit in Merleau-Ponty and Proust http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/The-fruit-the-tree-and-the-serpent-by-Lynne-Isbell.php How did we get to the point where we miss the smells that a dog experiences but we see the rest of life in fine, colorful detail and depth?... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/We-Cant-All-Be-Gods.php When my best friend Nigel and I were fourteen we started a band. Neither of us played a musical instrument. So my father took promo photos for us instead... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/bobo.php My brother Bobby and I looked up from the Nintendo. Our parents had given us the new game console for Christmas, and we had been glued to the television set ever since... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/The-crisis-of-capitalist-democracy-Richard-Posner.php My book will soon be two years old. But I don't think it has dated. What has happened since it was published is more of the same: more depression, more federal deficit, more political stalemate, more retreat from stimulus, more doubts about the Administration's handling of the crisis... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Freedom-and-the-laws-of-nature.php One of the central projects of philosophy since the seventeenth century has been the attempt to reconcile our self-image as human beings with the picture of the world emerging from the natural sciences... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/On-the-origin-of-stories.php Why do we love fiction? http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Boredom.php Yes you do. There's nothing left to believe in anymore. All is fiction. Somehow, we have to invent our own reality... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Between-sense-and-de-Kooning-by-Richard-Shiff.php Even as he became a celebrity in the world of art, Willem de Kooning took pride in remaining an ordinary man, living (he liked to say) as he had when he was unknown and poor... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/On-art-and-war-and-terror.php ‘Poetry makes nothing happen,' said the poet W. H. Auden. How wrong he was... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Dialogues-between-faith-and-reason.php Dialogues tells a story about how we got to where we are and hopes that the very telling of that story will help create a way for readers themselves to engage in reasonable dialogues about matters of faith... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Mindreading-animals.php Anyone who has ever lived with a dog or a cat (or any other intelligent social animal) will attest to the occasional uncanny feeling that one's pet knows what one is thinking... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Frans-Hals.php As the Metropolitan Museum's curator of Dutch and Flemish paintings for the past thirty-one years I know the collection's 230 Dutch pictures (those dating ca. 1600-1800) as well as I would if they were hanging in my own house... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Why-I-write.php I'm lonely but I dislike the company of other people and this puts me in a Hellbox... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Taking-movies-seriously.php Film and Philosophy: Taking Movies Seriously is a brief overview of the history of philosophizing about film, which begins with a survey of early film theorists that had a philosophical bent (like Munsterberg and Eisenstein) and with profiles of the two most significant writers in the field so far, Stanley Cavell and Noel Carroll... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/The-blindness-of-the-heart-Julia-Franck-book-review.php Prologues and epilogues, so often skimmed and scanned, demand closer inspection if the novel they frame purports or has proven to offer a longer, worthier shelf-life than its run-of-the-mill rivals... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Our-buick-stopped-here.php Short story by Lee Matthew Goldberg (September, 2011) http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Absent-sunshine.php Poetry by Sharon Siegel http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Caleb.php Short story by Andrew MacQuarrie http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Simon-Perchik-Poetry.php Poems by Simon Perchik http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Norway-terror-attaks.php Mid-July in Oslo is generally a very quiet time, as much of the city's population leaves in order to embark on the summer holiday season... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Covered-bridges-in-the-Quebec-countryside.php The news stories that flooded front pages in the wake of Hurricane Irene late last month focused mostly on surging rivers, torn-up homes, downed trees, and the fate of New York City... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/What-neuroscience-tells-us-about-morality.php Self-preservation is embodied in our brain's circuitry: we seek food when hungry, warmth when cold, and sex when lusty... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/on-intelligence.php Although I recognized the concept of intelligence from an early age, it wasn't until high school that I realized that being smart meant more than getting good grades, and that different people could be smart in different ways... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Alfred-Stieglitz-a-legacy-of-light.php In Stieglitz: A Beginning Light, Katherine Hoffman focused on the early years of Alfred Stieglitz's (1864–1946) career and his European roots... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/The-clash-of-ideas-in-world-politics-john-owen.php The Arab Awakening – the chain of rebellions and revolutions that have rocked the Arab world since last December – has riveted the attention of people the world over... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Age-of-fracture-Daniel-Rodgers.php In the midst of a heated political discussion, you may still hear it said that ideas don't matter... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Blind-Spots-Bazerman-and-Tenbrunsel.php During the trying times that have followed the financial collapse of 2008, a long list of culprits has been blamed: homebuyers, mortgage lenders, bankers, Congress, and the Bush administration... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/The-welfare-state-and-the-rise-of-paternalism.php We live in increasingly paternalistic societies; almost every day, somewhere in the developed world, a new law regulates what people can eat, drink, smoke, view, or read... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Kantian-ethics-and-economics.php A Review of Kantian Ethics and Economics: Autonomy, Dignity, and Character... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/The-invention-of-market-freedom.php Through most of human history the word “freedom” has been used to distinguish the members of a social and political elite from those classes of people – women, slaves, serfs, menial laborers, and foreigners – who do not enjoy their privileges or share their ethos... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Toward-a-Buddhist-politics-of-freedom.php There is a central teaching in certain schools of Mahayana Buddhist metaphysics that all phenomena are shunya , or empty of inherent existence... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Neither-beast-nor-God.php The dignity of the human person http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/The-politics-of-inequality-in-Russia.php The Politics of Inequality in Russia is a study of the political processes underlieing the steady rise in inequality observed in Russia since the end of the Soviet regime... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Kantian-ethics-and-economics.php My father was an enigma to everyone, his three children not excepted. Perhaps even to himself... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Something-Tolstoyan.php There was a man who beat his children. His name was Hans Holder... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Darwin-Conjecture.php Social scientists have been wary of applying Darwin's ideas. In our book "Darwin's Conjecture: The Search for General Principles of Social and Economic Evolution" (published 2010 by the University of Chicago Press) we argue that these misgivings are ungrounded... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Human-Dignity.php My book is a defense of human dignity. I mean that it is a defense of the equal status of individuals or persons vis-à-vis one another, and a defense of the superior stature of the human species vis-à-vis all others species... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Economic-Origins-of-Roman-Christianity.php The Roman Catholic Church, a principal world religion today in competition with other Christian faiths, had, by 1600, achieved dominance over huge swaths of Europe... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Why-Jane-Austen.php Somewhere near the middle of "Why Jane Austen?", a book that combines literary and cultural criticism with recollections of teaching and travel and anecdotes about friends, neighbors, and strangers, I describe a gathering of Jane Austen fans I attended some years ago in England... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/The-inviolableking-of-Morocco.php When falling for short term gains to impede long-term retributions happen to be the way forward... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Sickness-and-health.php Many affairs of this life are fueled by money but one doesn't think about it unless the gas runs out... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/The-current-crisis-and-the-essence-of-capitalism.php The worldwide economic downturn is no short-term blip but a full-fledged crisis of capitalism. Amid the din of commentary and political posturing, it's appropriate to return to first principles for a better understanding of the crisis. What are these principles? The answer requires a foray into history. http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/The-Hebrew-republic.php It has become commonplace to attribute the rise of modern political thought in the West to a process of “secularization.” In Medieval and Renaissance Europe, so the story goes, political thought was fundamentally Christian, an exercise in applied theology... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Evangelical-Christians-deists-and-America-founding.php On New Year's Day of 1802, the Baptist evangelist John Leland delivered a remarkable gift to the White House: a 1,235 block of cheese... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Graham-Greene-and-I-were-wrong.php Graham Greene was wrong about Vietnam. Not in the main, of course. The Quiet American (1955) still stands as not only the inaugural novel of the American intervention in Vietnam but also as a brilliant exposition on why we were destined to fail... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/The-writing-life-Mayoff.php The writing life of the Canadian author Steven Mayoff. http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Great-Lakes-Foundry.php Short story by James Robison http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Cookies.php Short story by Lee Matthew Goldberg http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Bombay-Islam.php Along an alleyway amid a shanty town in the old port district of Bombay where in the nineteenth century the great steamship company P and O built its vast dockyard stands a shrine to an African holy man. http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/14-degrees-southern-latitude.php After flying in a two-engine job from Pago Pago (that cheap t-shirt of a town) to Apia , capitol of Western Samoa, a local merchant showed me a series of postcards... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Design-and-truth.php Perhaps the two most salient aspects of our humanity are our ability to communicate and our ability to design... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/A-Jane-Austen-education.php The idea that reading books can change your life has not been very fashionable this last century or so. It violates the high-modernist principle of art for art's sake, smacks of Victorian moralizing and self-improvement... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Anatheism.php Richard Kearney's Anatheism: Returning to God after God investigates the possibility of a God after God (ana-theos)... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Barbarous-Philosophers.php In his book The Invention Of Peace Michael Howard quotes the nineteenth century English jurist, Sir Henry Maine. “It is not peace which was natural and primitive and old, but rather war. War appears to be as old as mankind but peace is a modern invention… Not only is war to be seen everywhere but it is war more atrocious than we, with our ideas, can easily conceive...” http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Scotland-goes-down-the-Quebec-road.php Scotland is a heavily-urbanised but post-industrial nation which voluntarily renounced its status as an independent nation-state to merge with its larger and more powerful southern neighbour England in 1707... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Demystifying-Syria.php Syria remains poorly understood, despite the pivotal role it plays in the contemporary Middle East... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Origins-of-political-extremism.php Political extremism is one of the most pernicious, destructive, and nihilistic forms of human expression. During the twentieth century, in excess of 100 million people had their lives taken from them as the result of extremist violence... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Radical-democracy-and-political-theology.php Unbeknownst to many, the world is undergoing a monumental change with regard to the understanding and practice of the proper relationship between religion and politics... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Adam-Smith-radical-and-egalitarian.php A few years ago, I published a book with this title, responding to a question posed by Gordon Brown... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/The-Origins-of-Business-Money-and-Markets.php Prior to The Origins of Business, Money, and Markets, nobody has ever described how business, the practice of selling at a profit, first began... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/fairness-and-the-social-contract.php It seems that fairness is an idea whose time has come. True, some cynics view fairness as nothing more than a mask for self-interest. But the cynics are wrong... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Does-Science-Contradict-Religion.php Many people, these days, hold the opinion that religion and science conflict; in some deep way they are opposed to each other... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/From-Mao-to-Market.php It was late autumn 1968. Trudging through the snow along Rue de la Montagne in Montreal as the day drew to a close, I met up with an old family friend... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/The-Enlargement-of-Life.php The title comes from Santayana, writing in Three Philosophical Poets of “a steady contemplation of all things in their order and worth. Such a contemplation is imaginative. No one can reach it who has not enlarged his mind and tamed his heart..." http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/What-literature-teaches-us-about-emotion.php An Essay on What Literature Teaches Us about Emotion. http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Was-America-Founded-as-a-Christian-Nation.php Books: Was America Founded as a Christian Nation: A Historical Introduction. http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Alienated-and-Engaged-Muslims-in-the-West.php Book excerpt http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/the-tunnel.php Book Review http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Imagine-living-through-the-progress.php Essay by Mike Mercer http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/on-personality.php Essay by the poet Michael Milburn http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Iran-continuing-challenge-in-a-time-of-Arab-turmoil.php The Islamic Republic of Iran presents a wide range of challenges in a region that is already plagued by insecurity and conflict... http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/From-comrades-to-enemies.php Sino-Soviet Rivalry and the Termination of the Sino-Vietnamese Alliance.