RealClearBooks Articles

Somewhere on the southern edge of Greece, on the island of Rhodes, a tall man with a sunburned face and a body as if sculpted by centuries of salt and wind stood at the helm of a little, ridiculous-looking steel boat called Yellow Submarine, advertising rides to children. Having missed all the other regular ferries, I decided to board it. 'I came this far,' he said with a grin, 'because I'm escaping from my wife.' Then he turned to my Ukrainian friend, who fears boats but not Russian bombs, as she froze at the dock while six-year-olds jumped aboard. The captain caught her hesitation, pointed...

By all accounts, the new Superman film has been a major success. Released on July 11, 2025, it grossed $122 million on its opening weekend, marking the biggest debut ever for a standalone Superman movie. Still, the film has sparked debate after director James Gunn described it as a story about immigration. “I mean, Superman is the story of America — an immigrant that came from other places and populated the country,” he said. As a permanent resident who first came here as a student, I would go one step further: The story of Superman...

David Gergen was the right kind of fellow. Born in 1942 in Durham, North Carolina, his father chaired the mathematics department at Duke University, and served as director of a research office affiliated with the U.S. Army. As an undergraduate at Yale University, Gergen was regarded as a “likeable, well-informed guy,” according to a fellow member of Manuscript, his senior society. He served as managing editor of the Yale Daily News, producing articles and commentary that were “intended to make the system’s manifest good even better.” In 1967, he earned a law...

I was two years into college when I picked up the book “Real Education” by the much-maligned conservative Charles Murray. Even after the roughly 17 years since its publication, I found that the book surprisingly offered an educational perspective more conducive to student success than the more recent “College for All” movement I was surrounded by growing up.   In his book, Murray centers his discussion around four educational truths: ·       Academic ability...

The instruments of darkness tell us truths ~ William Shakespeare, Macbeth Preface Paterson, NJ Paterson is often described as physically static; a time warp rooted by a skyline of once vital mills. Some are brick and some are sandstone and all of them are vacant. Urban revitalization and other missions to lift this once great manufacturing hub, this mighty producer of silk, have been fitful. What has always anchored the city—its beating, iconic heart—are the Great Falls of the Passaic River. The falls are wonderous. They were both muse and motivation sparking Alexander...

Last year, Charli XCX lit a neon-green fire under the pop world with Brat — a brash, chaotic album that redefined what pop could sound like in 2024. The summer became dominated by the British singer’s viral success, seeping into the mainstream of American politics and everyday life. This summer, a thoughtful new star opens up the Brat universe to a broader audience: Addison Rae. Known first as a TikTok star, Rae spent the past year making the case that she’s more than a viral personality. With her belting scream on a remix of ‘Von...

Paterson, New Jersey, 1979: Jamie Palmieri is an up-and-coming patrol officer, three years out of the academy and frustrated with his slow rise to detective. That all changes one frigid night in January, when a double homicide at a local bar leaves the owner and a young woman dead. In the wake of the Rubin "Hurricane" Carter proceedings and the city's lingering distrust for the police, Jamie is told to expect a "no one saw a thing" investigation. But as Jamie traces a series of small leads, he's sent on a path where the tables turn suddenly - with the still-unknown killer now stalking Jamie...

On a sunny day in Alexandria’s historic Parker-Gray neighborhood, I knock on the door of a large brick house painted yellow with green trim. “You’re right on time,” says R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr. His home is less than a mile from the banks of the Potomac River and only a few blocks from the offices of The American Spectator, the magazine Tyrrell founded in 1967. Dressed in khakis and brown tassel loafers, the pocket square a silken plume rising from the breast of his navy-blue blazer, Tyrrell motions past the sitting room to his library, where a large portrait of...

Excerpted from Stop All the Clocks. Reprinted with the permission of the publisher, Arcade Publishing. “I was raised in South Florida,” Marcos said once Mona had finished. He didn’t offer any sympathy for her or ask follow up questions, which, oddly enough, Mona appreciated. “West Palm Beach. There’s a neighborhood called Parker Ridge, where all the Cubans live. It’s also where the local branch of Alpha 66 is at. Any idea what that is?” “Devil-worshipping fraternity of freemasons,” Mona guessed. “Close. It’s an...

The ability of racial preferences to stigmatize black achievements first hit home for me in college in the early 1990s. Just before the start of my senior year, I received a job offer from the local newspaper. A short time later, I happened to run into a former editor of the college paper where I had previously worked and told her the news. “Congratulations,” she said. “I heard they were looking for more minorities.” We were on friendly terms, so I don’t think it was her intention to offend, but the remark still stung. For me, the episode illustrated...

In late May, Kermit the Frog gave a commencement address. He did so at graduation ceremonies for the University of Maryland, alma mater of the late Jim Henson, the father of the Muppets. From his very first utterance one thing was clear to all in attendance: There was a throat in this frog. Kermit’s well-received words were the fetching fruits of independent thought, refreshing for their absence of a political axe to grind. He was, in short, nobody’s toady. Still, not everyone in College Park leapt for joy over where the selection committee had landed for a commencement...

A Thrilling Debut that Explores the Profound Mysteries of Life in the Digital AgeMona Veigh was feeling burnt out from the tech world—and life in general. Following the death of her unconventional colleague, Avram Parr, and the collapse of her AI company that left her a hefty cash-out, Mona retreated to her home on Roosevelt Island, free to toss her phone into the East River and curl up with a good book, forever.However, strange occurrences intrude on Mona's permanent vacation and thrust her back into the world. Colleagues from her former company begin to track her down and let on that...

This piece contains spoilers on 'The Last of Us' HBO’s The Last of Us is best known for its aggressive foray into the culture war, but beneath its surface-level agenda the show is an occasionally poignant character study on parent-child relationships. The gruesome Season 2 finale somewhat unexpectedly leaned into the latter last weekend, delivering a nuanced evolution to one of TV’s most obnoxiously jaded characters. And while the season attempts to paint Ellie as a “bad guy,” it perhaps inadvertently gives her a path to redemption. Season 2 picks up five years after...

From the BQE she caught the holy hell of it, the way smoke was streaming from burning steel. It was cinema, bad fiction, a plot point dreamed up as too ridiculous for art and discarded somewhere else. She drove on thinking that soon this would all dissolve and she’d be back home, in bed, maybe with Saul at her side. Emmanuel sleeping in the next room, under his Yankee posters. Her phone would ring and it would be Liv. Remember that time— The radio was beginning to use the word terrorism. It was a distant concept to her, men in foreign lands with submachine guns and hidden bombs,...

During the height of the pandemic, the Spanish priest Julian Carron published a book posing the simple yet loaded question: “Is there hope?” “The pandemic,” he posited, offered “a propitious opportunity for the verification” of the answer to this question—which “is the most widespread and challenging one in this time dominated by uncertainty…In fact,” he continued, “we are witnessing a full-blown clash between being and nothingness: a unique combat because of its import and dimensions, with a more visible part constantly...

A Contemporary Tragedy in a Classic StyleFour New Yorkers' paths collide in the days ahead of the 2016 election. Dan teaches Marxism while secretly courting a student. His girlfriend Mariko, an actress, finds refuge in her dying mentor's bed. When her sister, Akari, arrives from LA—in flight from her own dead-end romance—she becomes the unwitting witness to their mutual destruction . . . In crystalline prose, Gasda maps the territory between who we pretend to be and who we are—and how far we are willing to go when we think the internet isn't looking. The...

Akari was on the couch, scrolling Instagram. Her body was small, but she was very toned and lean from yoga and pilates classes, so she appeared longer than she was. And though her eyes were cast down, she was aware that Dan was staring at her, studying her very intently. “You look like someone, actually, who really needs to talk,” she said, without looking up (she was on the couch, he was on the floor). “Well, sure I do, yeah.” Dan laid down on the rug in the small common area, groaning slightly because his back was stiff; exhausted, he didn’t think he could or...

In 1985 – when I was 7 – the young kids in my neighborhood had a “swear club.” To join, the initiate had to hide behind a tree with the assembled members and say every swear word he knew. It was less common for children our age to encounter profanity back then. There weren’t many parents who routinely used profanity around kids, and other adults would clean up their speech when children were in earshot. This meant that the obscenities we did know were gleaned from overhearing adults in moments when they thought kids weren’t listening, or in brief bits of a...

It's 1973 and Mona Glass is a 24-year-old amateur tennis star in a long-running affair with Saul Plotz, her former college professor. Her parents like Saul and desperately want the free-spirited Mona to marry. But 34-year-old Saul already has a wife and two children. One day, Saul happens on an idea: stage a fake wedding for the benefit of her old world parents, invite a few friends in on the joke, and go about their lives. The ruse works. Except Saul realizes he actually wants to marry Mona, who vows never to permanently tie herself to a man. After losing her city job in the 1970s fiscal...