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"Luke Ford reports all of the 'juicy' quotes, and has been doing it for years." (Marc B. Shapiro)
"This guy knows all the gossip, the ins and outs, the lashon hara of the Orthodox world. He’s an [expert] in... all the inner workings of the Orthodox world." (Rabbi Aaron Rakeffet-Rothkoff) LATEST POSTS:
- The Unwinder: George Packer and the Study of American Decline
- Thomas Edsall: The Reporter Who Treated Politics as a System
- Ross Douthat and the Persistence of Belief
- Joseph Kahn and the Stewardship of The New York Times
- The Institutionalist: Dean Baquet and the Remaking of American Journalism
- The Publisher Always Wins – A Jill Abramson Biography
- Howard Zinn – The Historian Who Took Sides
- Linton Besser: A Reporter and the Paper Trail
- Gerald Stone and the Making of Australian Current Affairs
- Paul Barry: A Chronicler of Australian Power
- The Dean of Revolutionary Scholarship: Gordon S. Wood, 1933-2026
- The Last Generalist: Bob Ellis and Australian Public Life
- WEHT to Investigative Journalism?
- The Genius Myth: The Dangerous Allure of Rebels, Monsters and Rule-Breakers
- When Radio Hosts Transition To Podcasts
- The Jeremy Paxman Voice
- The David Dimbleby Voice
- The Krishnan Guru-Murthy Voice
- The Voice of Lyse Doucet (BBC World News)
- The Voice of Yalda Hakim (Sky News)
BEST POSTS:
* American Epistemics (1-19-26)
* The Most Socially Toxic Inconvenient Truths (1-18-26)
* The Luke Ford Genre (1-18-26)
* The Filkins Pivot: Legacy Prestige and the Fracturing of the Chattering Class (1-16-26)
* Decoding The Trump Doctrine (1-4-26)
* If Tatiana Schlossberg were “Tatiana Smith” (12-30-25)
* ‘I’m So Trained’: How The Credential Society Burned Down the Palisades (12-28-25)
* Status Closure and The Lost Generation (12-25-25)
* The Bondi Massacre (12-15-25)
* Sydney Jews Learn That Their Aussie Social Contract Has Become A Suicide Pact (12-15-25)
* Terror in Sydney: Analyzing the “Chanukah by the Sea” Massacre (12-14-25)
* Decoding Nick Fuentes (11-2-25)
* The Landscape of Emotional Sobriety (10-29-30)
* The Rise & Fall Of Air Supply (10-19-25)
* No Kings, No Results: How Elite Pride Replaced Real Progress (10-19-25)
* You Are An Important Soldier In A Great War (9-7-25)
* The Revolt Of The Masses (8-31-25)
* The Covenant of Ashwood (8-24-25)
* If you can’t trust central bankers, then who can you trust? (8-23-25)
* Why Is The Elite Media Singing From The Same Hymnal About The Trump-Putin Summit? (8-17-25)
* Why Do Smart News Operations Sound So Uniformly Dumb So Often? (8-16-25)
* Nobody Is Coming (8-10-25)
* When Elites Restrict Our Speech, It’s Because They Love Truth, Freedom & Democracy (8-3-25)
Category Archives: Marc B. Shapiro
Decoding Rabbi Isadore Twersky
Per Alliance Theory: Rabbi Isadore Twersky was the architect of the high-level intellectual ceasefire. He rejected the idea that a scholar must choose between the “sacred” world of the yeshiva and the “profane” world of the university. He argued that … Continue reading
Decoding Rabbi Joseph Telushkin
Written with AI: Rabbi Joseph Telushkin is a norm translator and moral ambassador rather than a boundary enforcer or institutional governor. Telushkin’s power does not come from controlling entry, legitimacy, or halachic process. It comes from shaping how Jews explain … Continue reading
Saul Lieberman and the Orthodox by Marc B. Shapiro (2006)
In Marc B. Shapiro’s study of Saul Lieberman, the central conflict illustrates the “coordination failure” that occurs when a high-status individual holds dual citizenship in rival coalitions. David Pinsof’s Alliance Theory suggests that social groups maintain their borders by demanding … Continue reading
The Limits of Orthodox Theology: Maimonides’ Thirteen Principles Reappraised by Marc B. Shapiro (2004)
In Marc B. Shapiro’s analysis of Maimonides’ Thirteen Principles, the “Limits of Orthodox Theology” reveals how a diverse movement collapses into a single, rigid “in-group” signal. David Pinsof’s Alliance Theory suggests that complex intellectual histories are often flattened into simple … Continue reading
Changing the Immutable: How Orthodox Judaism Rewrites Its History by Marc B. Shapiro (2015)
In Marc B. Shapiro’s study of religious censorship, the rewriting of history serves as the ultimate tool for social coordination. David Pinsof’s Alliance Theory posits that humans do not seek “truth” in a vacuum but rather use information to signal … Continue reading
Between the Yeshiva World and Modern Orthodoxy: The Life and Works of Rabbi Jehiel Jacob Weinberg, 1884-1966 by Marc B. Shapiro (2001)
In Marc B. Shapiro’s book, the struggle between tradition and modernity serves as a fertile ground for the strategic coordination described in Alliance Theory. The book examines the life and thought of Rabbi Yechiel Yaakov Weinberg, a figure who occupied … Continue reading
Why Religion Went Obsolete: The Demise of Traditional Faith in America
Aaron Renn reviews sociologist Christian Smith’s new book Why Religion Went Obsolete: The Demise of Traditional Faith in America in the new December issue of First Things magazine: Smith offers a useful new lens: obsolescence. Religion is now obsolete—that is, … Continue reading
The Worship Of Abstract Theory Over Human Welfare
The buffered love to worship theory while the porous are more likely to love other things. Robert Lighthizer writes in his 2023 book, No Trade Is Free: Changing Course, Taking on China, and Helping America’s Workers: Free trade is always … Continue reading
Saul Lieberman and the Orthodox (2006)
I ask Grok to critique this book by Marc B. Shapiro: Marc B. Shapiro’s Saul Lieberman and the Orthodox, published in 2006 by the University of Scranton Press, is a concise yet incisive examination of the complex relationship between Rabbi … Continue reading
Changing the Immutable: How Orthodox Judaism Rewrites Its History (2015)
I ask Grok to critique this book by Marc B. Shapiro: Marc B. Shapiro’s Changing the Immutable: How Orthodox Judaism Rewrites Its History is a meticulously researched and provocative exploration of how segments of Orthodox Judaism have engaged in self-censorship … Continue reading