David Hackett Fischer

Goldman responds to commentators who believe that Americans must return to some overarching identity and purpose. He argues that this task is difficult when the conditions that allowed previous unity no longer exist. Moreover, nationalists do not reasonably explain programs that could reignite a meaningful shared identity.

St. Thomas Aquinas knew more than his modern emendators do about grounding his just war deliberations—and much else—in the cardinal moral virtue of prudence.