First Things

2 days ago | firstthings.com | Colin Chan Redemer

Stuck:How the Privileged and the Propertied Broke the Engine of American Opportunityby yoni appelbaumrandom house, 320 pages, $32Disposable:America’s Contempt for the Underclassby sarah jonesavid reader, 304 pages, $30In an era in which the American dream slips ever further from the grasp of the common man, these two books seek the causes. What are the roots, both authors ask, of the economic stagnation of the American working class?

6 days ago | firstthings.com | Dominic Green

Mood Machine:The Rise of Spotify and the Costs of the Perfectby liz pellyatria/one signal, 288 pages, $28.99The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There’s also a negative side.” This statement, which is everywhere online, is attributed to Hunter S. Thompson. But Thompson’s original subject was the TV business, not the music business. No one knows who changed it.

1 week ago | firstthings.com

Please join us for a conversation with Clare Morell to discuss the pathway to freedom from digital technology for families, local communities, and society.

1 week ago | firstthings.com | Peter J. Leithart

Peter Harrison is one of today’s finest intellectual historians. He writes clearly, explains complex ideas lucidly without sacrificing accuracy or complexity, and supports his arguments with massive learning, from both original sources and secondary literature. Most of his books focus on the formation of modern concepts of “science” and “religion,” most succinctly in his 2011 Gifford Lectures, The Territories of Science and Religion. Harrison’s latest, Some New World, paints on a larger canvas.

2 weeks ago | firstthings.com | Dan Hitchens

Who am I to judge? More and more, the earth, our home, seems to resemble an immense pile of filth. We don’t need to be like rabbits. Make a mess! How can it be that it is not a news item when an elderly homeless person dies of exposure, but it is news when the stock market loses two points? The great majority of our sacramental marriages are null. Abortion is like hiring a hitman. God never tires of forgiving us; we are the ones who tire of seeking his mercy. I don’t remember the footnote.