SOURCE: Johnson, Paul. “Creative Destruction?” Commentary 109, no. 1 (January 2000): 66-8.

In the following review, Johnson offers high praise for Himmelfarb's One Nation, Two Cultures, calling it an important book about the moral condition of America.

Of all those who write about the moral condition of America, Gertrude Himmelfarb is the best—partly because she is a historian, able to dip into deep reserves of knowledge to bring up parallels and precedents; partly because she has a strong taste for hard evidence and makes impressive use of statistics; partly because she is cool-headed and refuses to become hysterical about the awfulness of things; and finally because she writes well and succinctly.

In this 190-page essay [One Nation, Two Cultures: A Moral Divide], Himmelfarb covers a lot of ground: the moral consequences of capitalism, the diseases of democracy, civil society, the family and its enemies, the problems of legislating morality, religion...