The New Criterion
The New Criterion is published by The Foundation for Cultural Review, a 501(c)(3) non-profit.
About | The New Criterion
The New Criterion, edited by Roger Kimball, was founded in 1982 by the art critic Hilton Kramer and the pianist and music critic Samuel Lipman.A monthly review of the arts and intellectual life, The New Criterion began as an experiment in critical audacity—a publication devoted to engaging, in Matthew Arnold’s famous phrase, with “the best that has been thought and said.”
The masterpiece of our time | The New Criterion
W he n Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s The Gulag Archipelago: An Experiment in Literary Investigation appeared in 1973, its impact, the author recalled, was immediate: “Like matter enveloped by antimatter, it exploded instantaneously!” The first translations into Western languages in 1974—just fifty years ago—proved almost as sensational. No …
Dispatch - The New Criterion
3 days ago · On Mark Catesby, Stephen Westfall, Fayum mummy portraits, Coade stone & more from the world of culture.
The heart of fugue | The New Criterion
M an y people, if they wonder how music is made up, suppose that it consists of a tune and an accompaniment. The paradigmatic guitarist in front of a campfire croons the melody, while his hands create the harmonies that give it color. In the bel canto operas of Bellini, the diva astonishes with her delivery of the top line while the orchestra provides dutiful underpinning, moving from tonic to ...
“Our Athenian American Democracy,” by Victor Davis Hanson
Democracy—the word itself means “people (demos) power (kratos)”—originated in late sixth-century Athens through the reforms of Cleisthenes.The Athenian popular leader transferred political power from the traditional tribal clans to the general Assembly of citizens.
“The profundity of evil,” by Douglas Murray
Editors’ note: The following is an edited version of remarks delivered for The New Criterion ’s sixth annual Circle Lecture on September 26, 2024.. O ve r the last six decades, a certain phrase has metastasized and become such a cliché that it has been used to describe all the following things and more: the coronavirus pandemic, Republican moderates, neoliberalism, January 6, …
p. 32 | The New Criterion
cosmos foundpressed between pagesof my father’sfirst editionSpring and Allturn yellowand fallto the floorGod forgive me—I’ve lostyour placein the universe
Plainsong | The New Criterion
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December 2024 - The New Criterion
The New Criterion is published by The Foundation for Cultural Review, a 501(c)(3) non-profit.