Marc M. Arkin

2 weeks ago | newcriterion.com | Douglas Murray |Andrew Shea |Marc M. Arkin |Roger Kimball

A recital by Evgeny Kissin in Carnegie Hall is a regular event—and “event” is the right word. A Kissin recital is an event because of the stage seating (the overflow crowd on the stage). But also because of the personal solemnity and earnestness of the pianist. He is not “one of the guys.” He does not take a mic and say, “Hey, y’all, how you doin’ tonight? Wanna hear some Bach and such?” No. He is a pianist of the old school (complete with concert tails).

3 weeks ago | newcriterion.com | Douglas Murray |Marc M. Arkin |Mark Steyn |Andrew Shea

Recent stories of note:“Descartes Be Damned” Costica Bradatan, Literary ReviewIf you studied French, philosophy, meteorology, or math, you’re bound to recognize the name Blaise Pascal—for, despite living only thirty-nine years, he wrote the classic Pensées, invented one of the first mechanical calculators, and has the unit of pressure, the pascal, named after him. A new book by Graham Tomlin presents the polymath as a founding figure of modernity, too.

3 weeks ago | newcriterion.com | Douglas Murray |Marc M. Arkin |Mark Steyn |Heather Mac Donald

H. L. Mencken once called the South the “The Sahara of the Bozart” (punning on the French beaux-arts), lamenting the decline and fall of that region from a great civilization to a “gargantuan paradise” with “not . . . a single orchestra capable of playing a Beethoven symphony.” That was in 1917.

3 weeks ago | newcriterion.com | Douglas Murray |Marc M. Arkin |Mark Steyn |Heather Mac Donald

Nonfiction: Rome Before Rome: The Legends That Shaped the Romans, by Philip Matyszak (Thames & Hudson): “It was the privilege of ancient writers,” said the Roman historian Livy, “to add dignity to tales of how their city was founded by adding a dash of the divine to human affairs.” And their privilege is our pleasure, as Philip Matyszak reminds us in his new Rome Before Rome, a collection of “cracking good stories” as well as the tales that told the Romans “who they are, what they should be...

1 month ago | newcriterion.com | Douglas Murray |Marc M. Arkin |Mark Steyn |Heather Mac Donald

In the March 13 issue of The New York Review of Books, Diane Ravitch published a scurrilous and overheated attack on school reform and the role the John M. Olin Foundation played decades ago in supporting scholars who promoted those reforms. As a former executive director of the John M. Olin Foundation and a supporter of charter schools and school vouchers, I was dismayed to read an article asserting that “racist” motives lay behind these efforts to improve America’s schools.