Christopher Caldwell (journalist)

Last updated

Christopher Caldwell
Born1962 (age 6162)
Lynn, Massachusetts, U.S.
OccupationJournalist, editor, author, writer
LanguageEnglish
Alma mater Harvard College
Genre Journalism

Christopher Caldwell (born 1962) is an American journalist and a former senior editor at neoconservative magazine The Weekly Standard to the Financial Times , and a former contributor of book reviews at Slate . [1] He is a senior fellow at the conservative think tank Claremont Institute and contributing editor to the Claremont Review of Books . [2] His writing also appears in The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times , where he is a contributing opinion writer. [3]

Contents

Early life and education

Caldwell was born in Lynn, Massachusetts, and graduated from Harvard College in 1983, where he studied English literature. [4] [5]

Career

Caldwell's 2009 book Reflections on the Revolution in Europe , which deals with increased Muslim immigration to Europe, received mixed reactions. The Economist newspaper called it "an important book as well as a provocative one: the best statement to date of the pessimist's position on Islamic immigration in Europe." [6] Others were more blunt, accusing Caldwell of stoking what The Guardian referred to as a "culture of fear". [7] [8] [9] Caldwell insists that he is "instinctively pro-immigration" and conscious of the media tendency to "sensationalize stories against Muslims". [10]

In 2020, Caldwell published The Age of Entitlement: America Since the Sixties , in which he argues that the civil rights movement has had significant unintended consequences: "Just half a decade into the civil rights revolution, America had something it had never had at the federal level, something the overwhelming majority of its citizens would never have approved: an explicit system of racial preference. Plainly the civil rights acts had wrought a change in the country's constitutional culture." [11] Caldwell writes that the Civil Rights Act 1964 was "not just a major new element in the Constitution," but "a rival constitution, with which the original one was frequently incompatible." [12]

It was reviewed in The New York Times , [13] The Wall Street Journal , and the Claremont Review of Books . Richard Aldous wrote in The Wall Street Journal, "It's curious that a book subtitled 'America Since the Sixties' doesn't actually have much history in it", going on to say: "The reader turns the page expectantly, waiting to see what Mr. Caldwell has to say about President Trump. We will never know, at least not from reading this book, because Mr. Caldwell ends in 2015. ... That's a shame, because 'The Age of Entitlement' raises important questions not just about the future of the republic but about Western society more generally." [14]

Caldwell has written about the arrival of the Pilgrims in North America from the perspective of the Wampanoag Indians. [15]

Personal life

His wife, Zelda, is the daughter of journalist Robert Novak. [16] His daughter, Lucy Caldwell, was the campaign manager for Joe Walsh's presidential campaign challenging Donald Trump for the Republican nomination in 2020. [17] Caldwell is a practicing Catholic. [4]

Related Research Articles

The Wall Street Journal (WSJ), also referred to simply as theJournal, is an American newspaper based in New York City, with a focus on business and finance. It operates on a subscription model, requiring readers to pay for access to its articles and content. The Journal is published six days a week by Dow Jones & Company, a division of News Corp. The first issue was published on July 8, 1889.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">David Frum</span> Canadian-American political commentator (born 1960)

David Jeffrey Frum is a Canadian-American political commentator and a former speechwriter for President George W. Bush. He is a senior editor at The Atlantic as well as an MSNBC contributor. In 2003, Frum authored the first book about Bush's presidency written by a former member of the administration. He has taken credit for the famous phrase "axis of evil" in Bush's 2002 State of the Union address, and he is considered a voice in the neoconservative movement.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ann Coulter</span> American conservative political commentator (born 1961)

Ann Hart Coulter is an American conservative media pundit, author, syndicated columnist, and lawyer. She became known as a media pundit in the late 1990s, appearing in print and on cable news as an outspoken critic of the Clinton administration. Her first book concerned the impeachment of Bill Clinton and sprang from her experience writing legal briefs for Paula Jones's attorneys, as well as columns she wrote about the cases. Coulter's syndicated column for Universal Press Syndicate appears in newspapers and is featured on conservative websites. Coulter has also written 13 books.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert Novak</span> American journalist and columnist (1931–2009)

Robert David Sanders Novak was an American syndicated columnist, journalist, television personality, author, and conservative political commentator. After working for two newspapers before serving in the U.S. Army during the Korean War, he became a reporter for the Associated Press and then for The Wall Street Journal. He teamed up with Rowland Evans in 1963 to start Inside Report, which became the longest running syndicated political column in U.S. history and ran in hundreds of papers. They also started the Evans-Novak Political Report, a notable biweekly newsletter, in 1967.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Regnery Publishing</span> Conservative book publisher based in Washington, D.C.

Regnery Publishing is a politically conservative book publisher based in Washington, D.C. The company was founded by Henry Regnery in 1947. In December 2023, Regnery was acquired from Salem Media Group by Skyhorse Publishing, with Skyhorse president Tony Lyons becoming Regnery's publisher.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mark Steyn</span> Canadian writer (born 1959)

Mark Steyn is a Canadian author and a radio, television, and on-line presenter. He has written several books, including The New York Times bestsellersAmerica Alone, After America, and Broadway Babies Say Goodnight. In the US he has guest-hosted the nationally syndicated Rush Limbaugh Show, as well as Tucker Carlson Tonight on Fox News, on which he regularly appeared as a guest and fill-in host. In 2021, Steyn began hosting his own show on British news channel GB News. He left GB News in early February 2023, saying that the channel wanted him to pay fines issued by the UK media regulator Ofcom, which was investigating complaints of COVID-19 vaccination scepticism aired on The Mark Steyn Show. He has since moved his show to his own website.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ayaan Hirsi Ali</span> Activist, politician, and author (born 1969)

Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Lady Ferguson is a Somali-born Dutch-American writer, activist and former politician. She is a critic of Islam and advocate for the rights and self-determination of Muslim women, opposing forced marriage, honour killing, child marriage, and female genital mutilation. At the age of five, following local traditions in Somalia, Ali underwent female genital mutilation organized by her grandmother. Her father—a scholar, intellectual, and a devout Muslim—was against the procedure but could not stop it from happening because he was imprisoned by the Communist government of Somalia at the time. Her family moved across various countries in Africa and the Middle East, and at 23, she received political asylum in the Netherlands, gaining Dutch citizenship five years later. In her early 30s, Hirsi Ali renounced the Islamic faith of her childhood, began identifying as an atheist, and became involved in Dutch centre-right politics, joining the People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD).

Theodore Bruce Bawer is an American-Norwegian writer. Born and raised in New York, he has been a resident of Norway since 1999 and became a citizen of Norway in 2024. He is a literary, film, and cultural critic and a novelist and poet, who has also written about gay rights, Christianity, and Islam.

Peter Brimelow is an American white supremacist writer. He is the founder of the website VDARE, an anti-immigration site associated with white supremacy, white nationalism, and the alt-right.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mark Helprin</span> US author, journalist, and commentator

Mark Helprin is an American-Israeli novelist, journalist, conservative commentator, Senior Fellow of the Claremont Institute for the Study of Statesmanship and Political Philosophy, Fellow of the American Academy in Rome, and Member of the Council on Foreign Relations. While Helprin's fictional works straddle a number of disparate genres and styles, he has stated that he "belongs to no literary school, movement, tendency, or trend".

Harry Victor Jaffa was an American political philosopher, historian, columnist, and professor. He was a professor emeritus at Claremont McKenna College, Claremont Graduate University, and was a distinguished fellow of the Claremont Institute. Robert P. Kraynak says his "life work was to develop an American application of Leo Strauss's revival of natural-right philosophy against the relativism and nihilism of our times".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Claremont Institute</span> American conservative think tank

The Claremont Institute is an American conservative think tank based in Upland, California, founded in 1979 by four students of Harry V. Jaffa. It produces the Claremont Review of Books, The American Mind, and other publications.

The Independent Institute is an American libertarian think tank founded in 1986 by David J. Theroux and based in Oakland, California. The institute has more than 140 research fellows and is organized into seven centers addressing a range of political, social, economic, legal, environmental, and foreign policy issues. The Independent Institute publishes books, reports, blogs, podcasts, and the quarterly scholarly journal The Independent Review.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Heather Mac Donald</span> American conservative political commentator

Heather Lynn Mac Donald is an American conservative political commentator, essayist, lawyer, and author. She is known for her pro-police views and opposition to criminal justice reform. She is a fellow of the Manhattan Institute think tank and a contributing editor of its City Journal.

<i>America Alone</i> 2006 English-language book by Mark Steyn

America Alone: The End of the World as We Know It is a 2006 non-fiction book by the Canadian newspaper columnist and writer Mark Steyn. It forecasts the downfall of Western civilization due to internal weaknesses and Muslim population growth in Western countries and the world generally. Based on his own observations, Steyn says that the fall of the Western world is caused by three factors: demographic decline, unsustainability of the advanced Western social democratic state, and exhaustion of civilization. By 2007, Steyn's America Alone, had already convinced many American conservatives that there was an imminent and inevitable Muslim invasion. The Canadian Islamic Congress (CIC) filed Human rights complaints against Maclean's magazine—in which they accused the magazine of Islamophobia—with the Canadian Human Rights Commission, the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal and the Ontario Human Rights Commission, based partly on Maclean's publication of a chapter from Steyn's book, "The Future Belongs to Islam".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Douglas Murray (author)</span> British author and political commentator (born 1979)

Douglas Murray is a British author and conservative political commentator, cultural critic, and journalist. He founded the Centre for Social Cohesion in 2007, which became part of the Henry Jackson Society, where he was associate director from 2011 to 2018.

<i>Reflections on the Revolution in Europe</i> 2009 book by Christopher Caldwell

Reflections on the Revolution in Europe: Immigration, Islam, and the West is a 2009 book by Christopher Caldwell about the impact of the mass immigration of Muslims to Europe in the 20th century.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Reihan Salam</span> American journalist

Reihan Morshed Salam is an American conservative political commentator, columnist and author who, since 2019, has been president of the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research. He was previously executive editor of National Review, a columnist for Slate, a contributing editor at National Affairs, a contributing editor at The Atlantic, an interviewer for VICE and a fellow at the University of Chicago Institute of Politics.

<i>The Age of Entitlement: America Since the Sixties</i> 2020 non-fiction book by Christopher Caldwell

The Age of Entitlement: America Since the Sixties is a 2020 book by Christopher Caldwell of the conservative Claremont Institute think tank, that observes changes in the social and political fabric of American society since the 1960s and their impact on contemporary life.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Benton Museum of Art</span> Art museum in California, United States

The Benton Museum of Art at Pomona College, known colloquially as the Benton, is an art museum at Pomona College in Claremont, California. It was completed in 2020, replacing the Montgomery Art Gallery, which had been home to the Pomona College Museum of Art (PCMA) since 1958. It houses a collection of approximately 19,000 items, including Italian Renaissance panel paintings, indigenous American art and artifacts, and American and European prints, drawings, and photographs. The museum is free to the public.

References

  1. "Christopher Caldwell". Slate . Archived from the original on December 8, 2022. Retrieved June 24, 2024.
  2. "Recovering the American Idea". Claremont Institute. Retrieved February 2, 2020.
  3. "Christopher Caldwell". The New York Times . Archived from the original on June 23, 2024. Retrieved June 24, 2024.
  4. 1 2 "Interview with Christopher Caldwell". Interviews with Max Raskin. Retrieved February 14, 2024.
  5. "Christopher Caldwell". The Claremont Institute. Retrieved February 14, 2024.
  6. "Europe and Islam: A treacherous path?". The Economist. August 27, 2009. Archived from the original on August 5, 2011. Retrieved August 5, 2011.
  7. Goodhart, David (January 17, 2009). "Do we need more people in Europe?". The Guardian. London. Retrieved September 26, 2009.
  8. "Europe is changing to accommodate Islam, says US author". NRC Handelsblad. September 8, 2009. Archived from the original on February 22, 2013. Retrieved September 26, 2009.
  9. Mishra, Pankaj (August 15, 2009). "A culture of fear". The Guardian. London. Retrieved September 26, 2009.
  10. "An Interview with Christopher Caldwell". Pickled politics. June 3, 2009. Archived from the original on February 24, 2012. Retrieved September 27, 2009.
  11. Dreher, Rod (January 27, 2020). "'Civil Rights' And Totalitarianism". The American Conservative. Retrieved August 25, 2020.
  12. MacDougald, Park (January 21, 2020). "A New Conservative Theory of Why America Is So Polarized". Intelligencer. Retrieved August 25, 2020.
  13. Rauch, Jonathan (January 17, 2020). "Did the Civil Rights Movement Go Wrong?". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved August 25, 2020.
  14. Aldous, Richard (January 17, 2020). "'The Age of Entitlement' Review: The Dividing Line". The Wall Street Journal . ISSN   0099-9660 . Retrieved October 20, 2022.
  15. "Plymouth Rock Landed on Them". Claremont Review of Books. Retrieved February 14, 2024.
  16. Novak, Robert (September 8, 2008). "Robert Novak: Me and my brain tumor" . Retrieved January 4, 2022.
  17. Olito, Frank. "11 of the most powerful women who are running the 2020 presidential campaigns from behind the scenes". Insider. Retrieved February 2, 2020.