Also In This Issue
Articles
Transcendence Commodified
Michel Houellebecq’s Platform offers a troubling vision of Islam and capitalism.
Cruz’s Great Gamble
What will future primary voters make of his dramatic convention speech?
Thoughts and Prayers in Baton Rouge
In a tense, racially divided city, they matter indeed.
Features
Books, Arts & Manners
An Eroded Culture
J. D. Vance’s memoir belongs on a shelf with Senator Jim Webb’s Born Fighting as an intelligent and vivid exploration of Scots-Irish culture in the United States.
The Seduction of Benedict Arnold
Just about the only thing most Americans know about Benedict Arnold is that he was a traitor. Nathaniel Philbrick changes that.
Unjust Takings
Somin thoroughly explains the unfortunate expansion of the “public use” requirement that took hold by the mid 20th century.
Rights before Government
The Constitution sought to constrain democratic impulses and was, in many key respects, quite undemocratic.
New-Style Culture War
How the Ghostbusters reboot fits into the current culture war.
Sections
Letters
Jefferson’s Wall
I was disturbed to see Donald Critchlow abandon to the hard Left Jefferson’s “Letter to the Danbury Baptists” (“The Assault on Christians,” July 11).
Out of context, one can read ...
The Week
‐ Maybe the Democrats should just go back to using fax machines.
‐ A lot of Republicans got very mad at Ted Cruz for pointedly declining to endorse Donald Trump at ...
DNC Hacks Get Hacked
WikiLeaks dumped a ton of hacked e-mails from the Democratic National Committee.
Poetry
ANTE MERIDIEM
for Ivy
What I desire in the morning
is the music of guitar, its pottery-dull notes
knocking knees in the lower strings
and in the upper notes a skittering like
the black-capped chickadee that ...
Liberated Warrior
It’s an invigorating and freeing experience to be part of the principled counter-revolution.