"There are two or three different people in every man's skin. Who shall draw a line and say here genius ends and madness begins?" —Clara Morris, actress and friend of John Wilkes Booth The assassination of Abraham Lincoln on Good Friday, April 14, 1865, at Ford's Theater in Washington, D.C., is one of the most [...]
Across the centuries, composers have been inspired by the twin dramas of human conflict and the subsequent making of peace. Here are ten great pieces of classical music that dramatize war, celebrate its resolution, and recall its sacrifices. 10. Franz Liszt: The Battle of the Huns One of the composer's many tone poems, Franz Liszt's Hunnenschlacht—written in [...]
Alas, our poor, patron demons are neglected in the twenty-first-century, secular West. What has happened that we no longer think of demons as everyday presences? And can demons—or even the Devil himself—make one do it? Mankind has long believed in the existence of evil spirits that haunt and torment the living. Tales of demons are [...]
History is made through the actions of men and women. In studying the past, it is the historian’s job to avoid the provincialism of the present by understanding that events might have developed differently if people had made different choices at certain pivotal moments. Nothing is inevitable. At the same time, history provides examples of great courage and [...]
Thomas Fleming argues that the Civil War was both a triumph and tragedy. Though it brought an end to slavery, it did so at the expense of some of 850,000 American lives—an unnecessary and regrettable sacrifice for which a small group of people was ultimately responsible. A Disease in the Public Mind: A New Understanding [...]
When in the Course of Human Events: Arguing the Case for Southern Secession, by Charles Adams. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield, 2000. This work is a spirited polemic whose central aim is to condemn the North’s subjugation of the South between 1861 and 1865. Asserting that the Civil War was at its heart a “fiscal [...]
Novelist Walker Percy was a fan of Bruce Springsteen, calling him “my favorite American philosopher.” Percy even wrote a letter to Mr. Springsteen, seeking information about his interest in Flannery O’Connor and his spiritual journey as a baptized Roman Catholic. Percy was also impressed by Mr. Springsteen’s song-writing, seeing the New Jersey native as a sort of American [...]
The American military has traditionally promoted love of country, self-sacrifice, and courage. These latter two virtues, especially, are honed in wartime, and though war is always to be avoided due to its many attendant evils, there is no denying that it is a singular stage upon which great acts of sacrifice and stunning displays of [...]
“Carmina Burana” continues to fill seats in concert halls, to echo in the minds of those who revel in its catchy tunes and intoxicating rhythms, and perhaps to entertain even prudish among us, who discreetly savor in secret this pagan cantata’s celebration of the taboo joys of the flesh. When determining their programming for the [...]
Thucydides' account of the twenty-seven-year war between Athens and Sparta is filled with timeless questions about human conflict: When are aggression and vengeance justified? Can peace ever truly be secured by war? How does war affect the integrity of language and character? What is the role of chance in war? Is war ever truly inevitable? Additionally, the participants [...]
“For John Wilkes Booth, sweeping, grand gestures were a way of life. It was how he navigated his way through this world. The bigger and bolder, the better.” —Jesse Johnson, who portrayed Booth in “Killing Lincoln” Americans tend to think of assassins as mentally-unbalanced individuals, who kill—or try to kill—for reasons that make little or [...]
The idea was intriguing: Present a concert of the music of Antonio Vivaldi and Niccolo Paganini in the guise of a tale of two rival violinists, who vie for technical supremacy and for the attention of a comely young woman. Throw in the germ of an idea from Edgar Allan Poe’s The Masque of the [...]
Once a symbol of national unity and reconciliation, Robert E. Lee is under attack in modern America. In recent years, his name and that of other Confederate generals have been erased from schools across the South, and his statue and those of his Southern compatriots have been removed from countless town squares throughout the country. [...]
On July 19, 1988, Bruce Springsteen played a concert in East Berlin, telling the crowd: “I came to play rock ‘n’ roll for you East Berliners in the hope that one day all the barriers will be torn down.” The program included Bob Dylan’s “Chimes of Freedom.” An East German concertgoer recalled: “What I got [...]