New Criterion
Roger Kimball January 2007

I think I know man, but as for men, I know them not.
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau

In a memorable passage at the beginning of The Critique of Pure Reason, Kant evokes a soaring dove that, “cleaving the air in her free flight,” feels the resistance of the wind and imagines that its flight “would be easier still in empty space.” A fond thought, of course, since absent that aeolian pressure the dove would simply plummet to the ground.

How regularly the friction of reality works that way: making possible our endeavors even as it circumscribes and limits their extent. And how often, like Kant’s dove, we are tempted to imagine that our freedoms would be grander and more extravagant absent the countervailing forces that make them possible.

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New York Times Margalit Fox January 7, 2007

Elizabeth Fox-Genovese, a noted historian and women’s studies scholar who roiled both disciplines with her transition from Marxist-inclined feminist to conservative public intellectual, died on Tuesday in Atlanta. She was 65 and had lived in Atlanta for many years.

Ms. Fox-Genovese’s husband, the historian Eugene D. Genovese, confirmed the death, citing no specific cause. He said that his wife had lived with multiple sclerosis for the last 15 years and that her health had declined after she underwent major surgery in October.

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