What to Do About--: A Collection of Essays from Commentary Magazine

For 50 years Commentary has stood at the center of the great intellectual debates of our time, with its writers staking out flawlessly argued and brilliantly presented positions in the areas of politics, social policy, culture, religion and the arts. In 1994, months before there was any prospect of a political shift, the editors of Commentary commissioned the country's leading conservative thinkers to consider afresh the pressing issues of our day, with a view to framing workable solutions and policies. Crime, welfare, national defense, affirmative action, education, the arts, health care, the CIA, abortion, immigration, free speech, the children -- in each of these areas, an expert who has lived with and studied the problem in depth reexamines it, analyzes what is wrong with the conventional way of approaching it, and the proceeds, boldly and succinctly, to propose what to do about it. The definitive essays in this book, written by some of the most eminent figures on the American intellectual scene, are hard-hitting and fearlessly critical. They are also prescient, foreshadowing and setting the agenda for conservative politicians in the 1996 presidential campaign and beyond. Fascinating and important.- The Wall Street Journal CONTENTS: Introduction - Norman Podhoretz; The Children - William J. Bennet; The First Amendment- Robert H. Bork; Immigration - Linda Chavez; National Defense - Eliot A. Cohen; The Arts - Joseph Epstein; The Schools - Chester E. Finn Jr.; Health Care - David Frumm; The Universities - Gertrude Himmelfarb; Foreign Policy - Robert Kagan; Welfare - Charles Murray; The CIA - Richard Pipes; Affirmative Action - Arch Puddington; Abortion -James Q. Wilson; Crime - James Q. WilsonThe essays...are take-no-prisoners arguments, typically grappling with the liberal status quo. The arguments are fact-freighted, severely logical, highly prescriptive and never overstated. --Wall Street Journal