Year In Review
Our Favorite Articles of 2019

A difficult year yields excellent writing.

© 2019 Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation
Faith on Film
The Martyr’s Secret

Terrence Malick’s A Hidden Life probes the inner life of an Austrian farmer who refused to fight for Hitler—and asks what it means to be a martyr.

National Museum of American History (Smithsonian Institution)
Do You Hear What I Hear?
The Jazz Magi of Carnegie Hall

There’s no better Christmas listen than “From Spirituals to Swing”—two jazzy Yuletide concerts from the late 1930s, brought to you by John Hammond and the wise men and women of rhythm.

“The Impeachment (Warren Hastings; Edmund Burke)” by Thomas Cornell via Wikimedia Commons
What’s At Stake
Impeachment, the Constitution, and American Civil Literacy

Impeachment has revealed a political class, a media, and perhaps most importantly a general public with a poor grasp of constitutional principles. Such political decay means the whole world will be the worse off—because the whole world is still watching.

Joe Rosenthal
Why They Fought
Iwo Jima and “The Purest Democracy”

Marine chaplain Rabbi Roland B. Gittelsohn’s eulogy at Iwo Jima explained why we owe it to the dead to work to fulfill the promise of American values. A former adviser to the Commandant of the Marine Corps explains why the rabbi’s words are just as important today.

photo by ccarlstead via Wikimedia Commons
The Spice of Life
In a Pickle with a Peck of Pickled Peppers

What do elocution, spices, Shakespeare, baseball, and Social Security reform have in common?

(Kremlin.ru)
Russian Pressure Points
Why Putin’s Threat to Belarus Can’t Be Ignored

As Russia seeks a deeper integration with Belarus, the masses in Minsk are protesting against a “soft annexation.” It’s time for the West to take notice.

Israel’s Political Decay
No Way to Run a Country

“We survived Pharaoh—we’ll survive this too,” is a common adage in Israel. But the country’s political dysfunction may get worse before it gets better.

TAI elsewhere
Announcing the State of the World 2020 Conference

The American Interest is pleased to team up with our friend and TAI contributing editor David J. Kramer. TAI will co-sponsor the State of the World 2020 Conference in January in Miami, Florida.

Tony Hisgett
Northern Ireland
Peace, “Process,” and Liberal Politics

What the UK general election suggests about the future of Northern Ireland.

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