The 20th Century


A Memoir Of 20th Century Of all the men in the Reagan era, few made as deep an impression as Caspar Weinberger. And by "Reagan era," we mean, in this case, Sacramento, too, for "Cap" was there-working by the governor's side. He was also with Nixon and Ford, in Washington. And he has managed to be in several other interesting places as well. In 1990, Weinberger published a book called Fighting for Peace: Seven Critical Years in the Pentagon. It was a solid book, but the Weinberger career-and life- deserved a better one. With In the Arena, it is here. [more]	People In A Way OR students of the Supreme Court, a crucial question is how to approach what the late Yale law professor Alexander Bickel called the "counter-majoritarian difficulty." Is the final authority to interpret the Constitution--of a democratic republic--really possessed by nine jurists who are not elected and who serve for life, subject to no meaningful threat of removal no matter what decisions they render? Constitutional-law scholarship is divided roughly in two on this question. Some (mostly, but not exclusively, political scientists and historians) claim that the Court actually quite rarely challenges prevailing political views, but instead "follows the election returns." Others (chiefly law professors) insist on the Court's importance as a restraint on democratic follies, happily embracing a vision of the justices as the proper arbiters of all constitutional questions. We might call the first camp "realists" and the second "idealists"; what they have in common is the denial, each in its own way, of the existence of the counter-majoritarian difficulty. For the realists there isn't really much counter-majoritarianism to worry about; for the idealists, counter-majoritarianism is desirable, so there isn't any difficulty about it. [more]
Revising 20th-century The post-Sept. 11 political environment has given questions about Islam's role and presence in America a vital urgency, and into that vacuum comes Robert Dannin's work, a welcome and sweeping portrait of orthodox Islam in America. Most media and scholarly accounts of America's Black Muslims have focused on the Nation of Islam and the colorful personalities of Malcolm X, Elijah Muhammad and Louis Farrakhan. [more]
20th Century Ad Through war and peace, recession and plenty, and in every extreme of weather and manner of adversity, railroads during the 20th Century have fueled the American economic engine. With fewer exceptions than any other form of transportation, railroads delivered civilian freight and defense supplies where they were needed, when they were needed, and in the condition they were needed. And until highways and jetliners displaced the passenger train after World War II, people also depended upon trains--and are again returning to the rails as traffic and airport congestion increase. History records that the 20th Century was the American century. It couldn't have been so without America's railroads. [more]