Demography has very probably been a factor in religious history all along. The Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language (a favorite book of mine) tells us that our word “proletarian” derives from the Latin proles, ”offspring”: A proletarius was “a citizen of the lowest class, useful only by producing children.” One may modify this […]

That Al Gore’s definitive statement on the crisis of the climate change movement appeared in the back pages of Rolling Stone magazine rather than in a more prominent and prestigious location is one sign of the decline in his reputation.  At the peak of the climate movement, such an essay might have appeared in Foreign […]

It must be as perplexing to his many admirers as it is frustrating to himself that a man of Vice President Gore’s many talents, great skills and strong beliefs is one of the most consistent losers in American politics. “All political careers end in failure,” said Enoch Powell; Gore has not won an election on […]

Don’t anybody tell Louis Farrakhan, whose video calling President Obama a murderer is oozing through the web this week, but race is slowly and surely fading away. The problem of the twentieth century may have been, as W. E. B. Du Bois put it so eloquently, the color line; the twenty-first century is on course […]

It seems that I suffer from a condition not yet included in the list of officially recognized psychiatric maladies: Manic Associational Syndrome (MAS). This is the irresistible urge to perceive things—like news items—as belonging together that are normally perceived as having little or nothing to do with each other. In the last few days MAS […]

When it come to excellence in education, red states rule — at least according to a panel of experts assembled by Tina Brown’s Newsweek.  Using a set of indicators ranging from graduation rate to college admissions and SAT scores, the panel reviewed data from high schools all over the country to find the best public […]

A new book of mine has just been published: Adventures of an Accidental Sociologist: How to Explain the World Without Becoming a Bore (Prometheus Books). The American Interest is kind enough to sponsor a launch of the book in Washington DC on June 29, as previously noted on this blog. I have been told that it […]

As the euro saga unrolls before our eyes, one thing is becoming clearer: the structure surrounding the euro has its weaknesses, but the crisis is not really about the currency at all. We are beginning to understand that this is as much a crisis of EU governance and political mentality, as of the economic policies […]

Can the Obama Presidency still be saved?To some, the question may seem premature or even insulting.  President Obama’s personal popularity remains high and the most recent RealClearPolitics poll average has him at a more than respectable 47.6 percent approval; while the President’s popularity is drifting lower, congressional Republicans have been losing ground to their Democratic […]

I would like to inform the readers of this blog that there will be a lunchtime roundtable on the occasion of the release my new book, Adventures of an Accidental Sociologist: How to Explain the World Without Becoming a Bore, in Washington DC on June 29th. My friends E.J. Dionne of the Washington Post, Tom […]