You know, I love the Claremont Review of books as much as the next knuckle-dragging conservative (thanks for the subscription Elder), but must it be so gill darn academic and obscure? A quick note to the editors: I AM NOT SOME ACADEMIC EGGHEAD! Reading the past few issues I often get the feeling they think I am.
Finally polishing off the Spring '05 edition, I came across a piece by Douglas E. Streusand (apparently, like in journalism, there are no "Dougs" "Mikes" or "Daves" in the academic world) called New Totalitarians, a review of a book called "New Political Religions, or an Analysis of Modern Terrorism" by Barry Cooper.
Doug makes some interesting points in the piece, namely establishing again that there is a religious element to why the terrorists are terrorists, but loses me with sentences like this:
Cooper refers to the European concept of war as Clauswitzian. Cooper's negative evaluation of Clausewitz follows views of Martin van Creveld and John Keegan; unfortunately he has not consulted Michael Handel.
Who?
Who but a handful of professors (or perhaps Scott Johnson) would be able to get anything out of a sentence like that?
The magazine refers to itself as a "Journal of political thought and statesmanship". Okay, but most of the readers of the journal actually have these meddling things called jobs and other time-consuming annoyances like family (not to mention hobbies like casual drinking) that leave little time to go back and read the collected works of some obscure tenured wonks named Clauswitz, van Creveld, Keegan or Handel.
So dumb it down Claremont! I don't own a tweed coat with corduroy elbows, a pipe or one of those laser pointy thingies and my office hours are 8-5.
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