THE STANDARD READER
The Standard Reader Books in Brief John Winthrop, governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony, coined a phrase that still reverberates—perhaps the defining phrase for America. Quoting the Gospel of...
...While he provides a riveting recounting of battle, complete with sniper attacks, explosions, injury, and death, his book's heart is his admiration for the young American soldiers who "wrap goodness and aggressiveness in the...
...Well, maybe...
...Technically, Charles I had granted a charter not to the Puritans but to the New England Company for a commercial venture...
...they are gracious, charitable, and humane to opponents...
...And here he is on Bill Maher: "When [he] greeted his female guests on Politically Incorrect with a grinning 'Hey Gorgeous!' he showed how acute his Zeitgeist antennas were...
...Quoting the Gospel of Matthew, he said Massachusetts must stand as "a city set on a hill," for "the eies of all people are uppon us...
...Here he is on fans of hip-hop: "Like their idol Eminem, they make that peculiar downward jabbing gesture with their fingers in a hook shape, always reminding me incongruously of Mussolini haranguing the crowd from his balcony...
...They don't kill soldiers who have surrendered...
...Francis Bremer's excellent and comprehensive biography restores Winthrop to his rightful place in American memory...
...And although Newell doesn't always succeed at maintaining a consistent tone, he writes in an easy, laconic style...
...Americans don't shoot women and children...
...The attitude of the soldiers is explicitly rooted in their Americanism...
...When Newell misses his tone, it's usually because he has taken on pop culture...
...That's what the [people] we're up against do...
...So Winthrop bought shares, got himself named governor of the corporation, and in April 1630 hurried across the Atlantic with his Puritan followers—ostensibly as a business venture...
...Leslie Carbone...
...That's what we're fighting...
...The boldness of the move seemed to shape the character of what would become a new nation...
...Matthew Continetti Zinsmeister, editor of the American Enterprise, traveled with the 82nd Airborne from Kuwait to Iraq's Tallil Air Base, and in Boots on the Ground, he recounts the experience of being an embedded journalist...
...But if Newell is not always persuasive about Homer Simpson, he's always persuasive about the original Homer's Iliad—and how we've slid away from manliness...
...Patrick Walsh Waller Newell has written a Straussian self-help book— which is to say that Newell's lessons on manliness derive from close readings of the Western canon...
...The Code of Man is a "journey," Newell writes in his introduction, "corresponding to the five main ingredients of a satisfying life—love, courage, pride, family, and country...
...same uniform...
...Though devoted to God, Winthrop had shrewd business acumen...
...When they shoot, . . . they rarely miss...
...Few contemporary writers can write with verve on such diverse topics as Machiavelli and Teddy Roosevelt, Rousseau and Erasmus...
...Yet they don't nurse grudges...
...Zinsmeister recounts Charlie Company Captain Adam Carson's pep talk just before a key battle: "I want you to remember . . . you are Americans...
...When he's not contributing to THE WEEKLY STANDARD, Newell teaches at Carleton University in Ottawa—and there are plenty of moments when The Code of Man rises above self-help literature to become a portable, semester-long course on Western norms of masculinity...
Vol. 9 • October 2003 • No. 6
