Lengthened Shadows: America and Its Institutions in the Twenty-First Century [Paperback]

Roger Kimball (Editor), Hilton Kramer (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 1, 2004

In a series of penetrating reflections on the United States and its institutions in the post-9/11 world, this book offers some answers to questions that people at home and abroad have begun to ask about our country. How did it attain its international preeminence? What exactly is this richest, most powerful of countries made of? Where will its unmatched influence lead? Military historian Frederick Kagan discusses the future of our armed forces and the challenges they will face in defending America's unique position. David B. Hart shows how religion, with all its variety and occasional excess, is "alive and striving in America, with the power to shelter many virtues under its promises of supernatural grace." From the future of the law to the future of higher education, from music to the visual arts, Lengthened Shadows provides a unique situation report on American culture today. Writers and thinkers such as Robert Bork, Hilton Kramer, Roger Kimball and Mark Steyn offer a probing assessment of the institutions that organize our lives--their health, their influence and their prospects--at the beginning of what some commentators are calling "the next American century."

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Fans of the New Criterion, the Harper's for cultural elites bending right, will likely recognize most of the contributors to this anthology, which, like its parent publication, prefers to fortify its criticism with a healthy (if not liberal) dose of eulogy. As such, this selection combines politically self-conscious praise for American high modernism in architecture, poetry, and war with mournful longing for the very nearly departed in American society. Some are more indignant than others. Coeditor Kimball's "Institutionalizing Our Demise," a Samuel Huntington-esque^B appeal to reverse the centrifugal forces of multiculturalism, spits more bile than Jay Nordlinger's assessment of the state of classical music, which suffers primarily from a glut of enthusiastic, qualified performers. Robert Bork's piece on recent Supreme Court jurisprudence, likewise committed to provocative gloominess, will resonate with strict constructionists and social conservatives. It preaches to the choir at times, but alongside all its exhortations and laments shine some thought-provoking insights, such as theologian David B. Hart's intuitive musings on the unique ecstasies of American religion, perhaps this selection's best essay. Brendan Driscoll
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review

The lengthening shadow of Roger Kimball and Hilton Kramer is undeniable and so is the learning of the contributors. -- William F. Buckley

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Product Details

• Paperback: 255 pages
• Publisher: Encounter Books; 1st Pbk. Ed edition (December 1, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1594030545
• ISBN-13: 978-1594030543
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.9 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #628,118 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Shadows of the conservative mind, December 1, 2004

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Richard LeComte "richlec" (Tuscaloosa, AL) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Lengthened Shadows: America and Its Institutions in the Twenty-First Century (Paperback)

These essays take a clearly written, detailed and only occasionally overstated look at the state of our culture and our institutions. David Hart's essay on religion in America is the most cogent as he argues that a certain Dionysian form of Christian relgious fervor is holding sway over the country as liberal religion recedes. Robert Bork's essay on the imperial judiciary, which has ignored the Constitution to form judgments based on the thinking of the elite, is well written and exciting as well. Essays on architecture and poetry are better at showing us what isn't up to snuff rather than what should be happening (I rather like ornament in architecture, even if it's done ironically), and Mark Steyn's Jeremiad on the U.S. educational system, while true to a point, probably overstates the crisis in the classrooms. Finally, Hilton Kramer's summary of modernism is helpful for the lay reader seeking enlightenment of art, but as in his other work his attempts to draw a clear line between modernism and postmodernism, other than one is sincere and one isn't, just doesn't work. I, an uninformed reader, just can't see the difference between splatter and maggoty meat, although I admit that lots of excellent art has been brought forth over the last 50 years. These essays, however, make for engrossing reading, particularly the essay on military strategy, which attacks the Bush-Rumsfeld Defense Department, appropriately, from the right.