The scene is familiar from a thousand novels and films. Lines of soldiers, clad in brightly colored uniforms, march toward each other across a flat green field. Fifes and drums, perhaps a bagpipe, accompany them. Nearby, on well-groomed warhorses, sit cavalrymen, resplendent in gold-braided pelisses and plumed shakos. In response to shouted commands, the soldiers lift heavy muskets to their shoulders. Explosions drown out the fifes, and the magnificent colors vanish under clouds of thick gray gunpowder smoke. READ MORE >>
The War in Mali is a Reminder of France's Grand Malaise
It remains to be seen whether France's military intervention in Mali will be considered a military success, but it already seems possible to count it a political one. The war has earned support from across the French political spectrum, President François Hollande has garnered acclaim for his leadership, and the French public broadly supports the country's stated humanitarian mission. The intervention recalls the days when “la grande nation” laid claim to an ambitious international role, particularly within its former colonial empire.But in today's France, this portrait of unity and resolve is actually something of an aberration. Far from expressing a confident sense of mission, the French public has recently been more inclined to a sense of decline, malaise, paralysis and crisis. And it is at least partially justified. READ MORE >>
The Bookless Library
I. READ MORE >>
The Conductor
Where Do We Come From?
Democratic Enlightenment: Philosophy, Revolution, and Human Rights, 1750-1790 By Jonathan I. Israel (Oxford University Press, 1,066 pp., $45) I. READ MORE >>
Conspiracy Porn
The Prague Cemetery By Umberto Eco (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 445 pp., $27) READ MORE >>
