Stephen Miller

The guilty pleasure whose time has come

Another good reason not to drop acid.

There is only one valid definition of a business purpose: to create a customer,” the business writer Peter Drucker once said. One of the great things about capitalism is its concern with pleasing the customer, but in recent years this concern has gotten out of hand. Nowadays almost every…

The ‘progressive’ problem.

A guide for the perplexed.

It takes experience to drain a swamp.

The world needs more of it, not less.

The politics of applause.

I’m a former English professor, so I’m familiar with the jargon literary theorists often use—aporia, hermeneutics, deconstruction, and the French différance, a favorite word of the impenetrable Jacques Derrida—but in a recent book review I came upon an academic-sounding word that I had never seen…

Some historians talk about a “reading revolution” in the middle of the 18th century, during which literacy rates rose and people came increasingly to prefer reading silently over reading aloud—mainly novels, a relatively new literary form. In The Social Life of Books, Abigail Williams, a professor…

When the novelist and essayist Mary McCarthy died in 1989 many observers called her the foremost American woman of letters. In the past quarter of a century, McCarthy’s writing has faded from sight, but she may be making a comeback, for the Library of America recently published a two-volume edition…

In his address to Congress, President Trump promised that "dying industries will come roaring back to life." I think the president should be even more ambitious: He should seriously consider bringing back industries and services that have already died. And I can think of two "dead" products that…

Driving past an office building under construction in Reston, Virginia, where I live, I noticed posters on the building that said: "Iconic Offices." While reading a newspaper online, a pop-up ad came up that said, "Make Your Escape Iconic!" It was promoting a hotel in Miami Beach. I was puzzled.…

In early 1860, on the eve of the Civil War, Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species—published in Britain in November 1859—became a topic of conversation among a number of New England intellectuals. Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau read the Origin. So did Bronson Alcott, the father of…

In early 1860, on the eve of the Civil War, Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species—published in Britain in November 1859—became a topic of conversation among a number of New England intellectuals. Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau read the Origin. So did Bronson Alcott, the father of…

Adam Smith (1723-1790) may be the most misunderstood British thinker of the last 500 years—misunderstood not by intellectual historians but by journalists and the educated public. A case in point: Steven Pearlstein, a well-regarded business journalist, asserts that Smith argued that the…

Adam Smith (1723-1790) may be the most misunderstood British thinker of the last 500 years—misunderstood not by intellectual historians but by journalists and the educated public. A case in point: Steven Pearlstein, a well-regarded business journalist, asserts that Smith argued that the…

William Wordsworth is a great English poet, but one poem he wrote irritates me. It’s the sonnet that begins: The world is too much with us; late and soon, / Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers. I beg to differ. There's nothing wrong with getting and spending so long as you don't do it…

In its Great Battles series, Oxford University Press has published studies of Waterloo, Gallipoli, Alamein, Agincourt, and Hattin—the battle Saladin won that enabled him to recapture Jerusalem from the Crusaders. The latest entry in this series focuses on the Battle of Culloden, which took place on…

In his early twenties, David Hume (1711-1776), who is regarded by many observers as Britain’s greatest philosopher, studied law and worked briefly for a Bristol merchant, but he soon decided he wanted to be a man of letters. Instead of moving to London and becoming a journalist—the usual path for…

In its Great Battles series, Oxford University Press has published studies of Waterloo, Gallipoli, Alamein, Agincourt, and Hattin—the battle Saladin won that enabled him to recapture Jerusalem from the Crusaders. The latest entry in this series focuses on the Battle of Culloden, which took place on…

What do Jean-Paul Sartre, André Malraux, Michel Foucault, and Roland Barthes have in common? These French writers admired Mao Zedong, the tyrant responsible for a famine in which 40-50 million people died. He was responsible, as well, for the Cultural Revolution, which had a death toll of around…

When I first read Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman, which many critics consider to be one of the greatest American plays, I was puzzled. "What's Willy Loman's problem?" I said to myself. He was not like any salesman I knew—and I knew many because my father was a salesman, and so were most of his…

In recent years, I’ve begun to worry that I should think more about aging. (I know, I know — everyone is aging, but the term only seems to be used for people over 60.) The Beatles wrote “When I’m Sixty-four,” but I am 74—older than a baby boomer—so it’s irresponsible of me to know so little about…

When I sit down with old friends who, like me, are in their 70s, I sometimes ask: “If you could live your life again, would you do anything differently?” Most just scratch their heads and say, “I dunno.” Recently, I told three old friends that I would do one thing differently: I would get a middle…

John Kinsella, a highly regarded Australian poet who teaches at Cambridge, was quoted not long ago in the Times Literary Supplement as saying that he has “not sold his soul to market fetishization.” Kinsella means that he doesn’t want even to think about making a profit from his writing. But…

My wife and I—we are in our early seventies—sit down in a local restaurant. After handing us menus, the waitress returns a few minutes later: “Are you guys ready to order?” she asks. The waitress, who is probably in her early twenties, could be my granddaughter, yet she calls us “guys.” A day later…

WHEN I HEARD KARL Rove was visiting Duke--where I'd spent the last four years as a student battling the hard left--it was only a matter of seconds before I was browsing expedia for a flight.