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/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.