An endlessly entertaining portrait of the city of Amsterdam and the ideas that make it unique, by the author of the acclaimed Island at the Center of the World. Tourists know Amsterdam as a picturesque city of low-slung brick houses lining tidy canals; student travelers know it for its legal brothels and hash bars; art lovers know it for Rembrandt's glorious portraits. But the deeper history of Amsterdam, what makes it one of the most fascinating...

"Everywhere we look, throughout Europe as much as in America, patriotism is being replaced with nationalism, pluralism by tribalism, impersonal injustices by the tyrannical whim of autocrats. In short, the liberal tradition is in danger. It isn't just an issue of the survival of 'democracy' -- after all, Iran and Russia are ostensibly democratic. What is imperiled is the practice of liberal democracy, with its underpinnings in the beliefs of free...

There was a time when liberalism was an ism like any other, but that time, writes Michael Walzer, is gone. “Liberal” now conveys not a specific ideology but a moral stance, so the word is best conceived not as a noun but as an adjective — one is a “liberal democrat” or a “liberal nationalist.” Walzer itemizes the characteristics described by “liberal” in an inventory of his own deepest political and moral commitments — among other...

"A nurturing and hopeful collection of practices to help an emerging generation of Christians reconnect to their faith, find inner healing, and build spiritual community-from Glennon Doyle's "favorite faith writer" and the New York Times bestselling author of Jesus Feminist and editor of A Rhythm of Prayer. It's hard to leave a faith that has raised us. Maybe it's even harder to stay. But what can feel impossible is living in the tension. Living with...

"Historian Suzanne Schneider examines the politics and ideology of the Islamic State (better known as ISIS). Schneider argues that today's jihad is not the residue from a less enlightened time, nor does it have much in common with its classical or medieval form, but it does bear a striking resemblance to the reactionary political formations and acts of spectacular violence that are upending life in Western democracies"--

Why did the West, after winning the Cold War, lose its political balance?In the early 1990s, hopes for the eastward spread of liberal democracy were high. And yet the transformation of Eastern European countries gave rise to a bitter repudiation of liberalism itself, not only there but also back in the heartland of the West. In this brilliant work of political psychology, Ivan Krastev and Stephen Holmes argue that the supposed end of history turned...

American children are facing a crisis unlike any in human history: their very extinction. Every day, thousands of American kids are being robbed of their youth as they are converted into foot soldiers for an aggressive agenda of woke politics while parents watch in horror or resigned indifference. The insidiousness of wokeism is a phenomenon most American parents never fully realize, yet these ideas pervade children's minds because of the woke narrative...

In The Once and Future Liberal, Mark Lilla offers an impassioned, tough-minded, and stinging look at the failure of American liberalism over the past two generations. Although there have been Democrats in the White House, and some notable policy achievements, for nearly forty years the vision that Ronald Reagan offered - small government, lower taxes, and self-reliant individualism - has remained the country's dominant political ideology. And the...

"Written from the perspective of a liberal intellectual who has spent a lifetime as a writer, editor, and college professor, The Tyranny of Virtue is a precise and nuanced insider's look at shifts in American culture--most especially in the American academy--that so many people find alarming. Part memoir and part polemic, an anatomy of important and dangerous ideas, and a cri de coeur lamenting the erosion of standard liberal values, Boyers's collection...