Culture and Civilization

Intellectual activity in the twentieth century took place largely under the banner of science and society. As the new millennium develops, it is becoming evident that science and society are not words that represent an unmitigated good, nor for that matter, do they exhaust what is new in the human condition. Past writing on the theme of culture has emphasized the growth and expansion of human capabilities. Recent use of the term "civilization" has placed great emphasis on the fall from grace of human beings. The use of both terms is rapidly changing. Culture and Civilization develops critical ideas intended to produce a positive intellectual climate, one that is prepared to confront threats, and alert us to the opportunities of the twenty-first century. It recognizes that the twenty-first century presents people in all fields and of all faiths with shared challenges. Culture and Civilization embraces the work of novelists, journalists, cultural figures, technologists, physical sciences, historians, and policy personnel who range beyond social science areas. What they have in common is a view that civilization is under assault and that it represents a cause worth advancing and defending. This publication does not embrace idiosyncratic visions of the clash of world civilizations or the end of Western civilization. It does attempt to bring together immediate issues of the century that are substantially new and challenging. We see that the essential polarity between democracy and autocracy has now taken on larger, deeper dimensions in a different political, economic, and ecological terrain: the central issue of our day is now civilization versus barbarism. The character of democratic culture is central to the global equation and the systemic challenge. This publication is a sober response to such a challenge.

Irving Horowitz

Introduction I. Nations 1. Show Trials and the Ritual Purifi cation of Hypermodernity -Katherine Hirschfeld 2. Postmodernism and the Fabrication of Aboriginal History -Keith Windschuttle 3. The Darfur Genocide of Black African Women -Samuel Totten 4. How Europe Escaped Speaking Arabic -Michael Novak II. Sciences 5. The Strange Career of Political Sociology in America -Howard G. Schneiderman 6. Sociology and Classical Liberalism -Daniel B. Klein and Charlotta Stern 7. Crime, Criminals and Guns -James D. Wright and Nicholas E. Libby 8. Progressions of Belief in Global Warming -Michael Crichton III. Technologies 9. Corporate Social Responsibility and Energy -Robert L. Bradley, Jr. 10. Scholarly Publishing in 1929 and 2009 -Irving Louis Horowitz 11. Feminism, Freedom and History -Christina Hoff Sommers 12. The Strategic Use of Holocaust Denial -George Michael IV. Intellectuals 13. Heroic Statesmen -Paul Johnson 14. Classical Greek Origins of Modern French Thought -Athena Leoussi 15. Harold Laski on The State -Sidney A. Pearson, Jr. 16. T.S. Eliot's Metaphysics -Peter Milward Acknowledgments