A Magazine of American Culture | Chronicles Magazine

The Angry Summer

According to the Washington Post, McAllen, Texas is an “all-American city,” albeit one “that speaks Spanish.” So it’s small wonder that “immigration isn’t a problem for this Texas town—it’s a way of life.”

The Establishment

Ralph Berry

We need a word for the forces that govern our lives. Establishment, a term popularized by Henry Fairlie in the 1950’s, is common currency. He meant by it “the whole matrix of official and social relationships within which power is exercised.”

Drain the Swamp

Scott P. Richert

The most remarkable aspect of Bruce Springsteen’s performance at the 2018 Tony Awards wasn’t what he said or that he said it, but the unanimous acclaim with which it was greeted by both the assembled audience and those who viewed it at home.

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The Late Hit on Judge Kavanaugh
Pat Buchanan | September 18, 2018
What is being done here stinks. It is a transparently late hit, a kill shot to assassinate a nominee who, before the weekend, was all but certain to be confirmed and whose elevation to the Supreme Court is a result of victories in free elections by President Trump and the Republican Party.
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Cowboy Heroes
Roger McGrath | September 17, 2018
The cowboys were our heroes. There were dozens to choose from. My favorite among the B Western stars was William Boyd, who made 66 films as Hopalong Cassidy beginning in 1935 and ending in 1948.
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The Declaration Now—and Then
Gerald Russello | September 13, 2018
In 1996, Barry Alan Shain published his Myth of American Individualism: The Protestant Origins of American Political Thought. It was a book that should have shaken professional conservatism to its foundations.
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Clap & Trap
John Lukacs | September 12, 2018
I had heard about, but not read, "The End of History?" Francis Fukuyama's star-burst essay published in 1989; but I felt a twinge of sympathy for him as his critics chortled and pointed at history rumbling anew: people dancing atop the Berlin Wall, the Soviet Union falling to pieces, an American Army flying into Arabia.
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