Three-Part Harmony
A review by Adam Kirsch
After he was elected president in 1952, Dwight Eisenhower made a famous statement of belief that nicely summarized the mid-century American creed: "Our form of government has no sense unless it is founded in a deeply felt religious faith, and I don't care what it is." There is something absurd about the way the second part of the sentence casually annuls the first: If you don't care what people believe about God, how "deeply felt" can your own beliefs really be? What Eisenhower really seems to be saying is that religious people make good citizens -- more bluntly still, that fear of God is needed to keep people in line. This principle may or may not be true, but it has nothing to say about the truth or falsehood of any particular religion. Presumably, if Americans started sincerely worshipping Zeus or L. Ron Hubbard, they would get all the same civic benefits as if they were pious Jews, Catholics, or Protestants. The temptation to make a religion of religion, to recommend that...
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Previously Reviewed by Tablet Magazine
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Sempre Susan: A Memoir of Susan Sontag by Sigrid Nunez
 Two things you will not find in Sempre Susan, Sigrid Nunez's slim, elegant memoir of Susan Sontag in the 1970s:
- a predictable rehashing of the notorious writer's political gaffes and personal foibles -- her apparent insensitivity to the American victims of 9/11 and her refusal to talk openly...
Trials of the Diaspora: A History of Anti-Semitism in England by Anthony Julius
 Of all the qualities that Anthony Julius displays in Trials of the Diaspora: A History of Anti-Semitism in England -- intellectual force, extensive erudition, a lucid prose style -- the most admirable is surely his moral fortitude. For to write this encyclopedic study, which covers almost a...
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