All Writings and Appearances

Law & Liberty, June 11, 2020 It will probably take many years before we will be able to grasp fully the devastation left behind by 2020’s...

Law & Liberty, June 4, 2020 If you had just arrived in America for the first time in early March of this year from, say, the steppes of...

The New Criterion , June 2020   Poor Raphael! This year, the five-hundredth anniversary of his death, was to have been his year of glory....

First Things, June 1, 2020 Human beings have always yearned to know the future, and there have always been other human beings who claimed...

Quillette , May 24, 2020   Fear has been making some pretty foolish policy decisions in the last few months. In the US, the decision of...

The Wall Street Journal , April 10, 2020   (On Raphael’s “Transfiguration”)   Late in 1519, the great Renaissance artist Raphael faced a...

Quillette, March 28, 2020 One of the comforts of studying history is that, no matter how bad things get, you can always find a moment in...

The Spectator (World) , March 10, 2020   Spring term, 2170. Professor Hankins assigns an English translation from the 22nd century’s most...

The Spectator (World) , February 26, 2020 At the time of his death on Good Friday, 1520, Raffaello Sanzio of Urbino was the most...

The Wall Street Journal, December 22, 2019 It’s common for historians to write books for the anniversaries of famous events, like the...

American Affairs , Winter 2019   In a state where one may not criticize the regime, one learns the art of the unsaid. In China, as in the...

The New Criterion, December 2019 One thing you have to say about Leonardo da Vinci is that he really packs them in. The last major...

The Wall Street Journal , December 1, 2019   Thanksgiving is over and, predictably, impeachment couldn’t be kept off the table. We tried...

The New Criterion, November 2019 Among the “theoretical perspectives” that the modern academy expects us to take seriously is what is...

The New Criterion, September 2019 This year is the five-hundredth anniversary of Leonardo da Vinci’s death, and the museum world has not...

First Things , December 1, 2018   At present there is a great deal of handwringing about civility. On campus, students in screaming packs...

American Affairs , Fall 2018   Ex oriente lux.  With the spring academic term finished, I am in Japan and China, ostensibly to give...

The New Criterion, December 2017 Fame often does an artist little good. Quite apart from the moral temptations, there is the danger of...

de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture, University of Notre Dame, November 11, 2017 In his keynote address at the 18th Annual Fall...

Claremont Review of Books, Fall, 2017 Carlos Eire, America’s leading historian of the Reformation, which marked its 500th anniversary in...