May 19, 2007

Mailbag

Dear Subscriber,

Can you keep a secret? OK, there are no secrets on the Internet. But I am excited to divulge to you the first word of an intellectual explosion that The New Republic will case in our June 4 issue. Paul Berman has written a 28,000 word essay--an incendiary pamphlet, really--about the extraordinary -though exemplary- case of the Islamicist thinker Tariq Ramadan, who has become the darling of liberal commentators in Europe and increasingly also in the United States. Berman's essay is a detailed examination of not only of Ramadan's thought, but more generally of Islamicist thought since the 1920s--and more, of the bizarrely cordial reception that certain strands of Islamicist thought have recently found in the West. Berman's essay is erudite and vivid, a model of the history of contemporary ideas. And a model also of the battle of ideas: Berman has written a stirring defense of the liberal ideal against its enemies (and even against some of its friends)--an unforgettable call to intellectual responsibility. People will be arguing about it for a very long time. Do not miss it.

You may recall Berman's 2004 book, Terror and Liberalism, which was on the serious best-seller lists for months and months, and began the intellectual debate in which we are all, willy-nilly, now unavoidably ensnared. Reading his essay in our upcoming June 4 issue will be both a responsibility and an opportunity.

Best,
Martin Peretz
Editor-In-Chief
The New Republic

For a second, when this hit my in-box, I thought it might be a parody. But no, I see I've been served rather a treat (distinguished TNR subscriber that I am), that is to say, advance notice of an imminent "intellectual explosion" (sorry, "incendiary pamphlet"). Yes, before it hits the newstands! Forgive me Marty P, but this read rather more like an unfortunate example of the middlebrow-ization of the New Republic, than uber-titillating fare warranting rushing to the newstand on 52nd and Lex for hard-copy. More Atlantic for me, I guess, going forward!

Posted by Gregory at May 19, 2007 02:05 AM