The following is a summary of the August, 2004, issue of the St. Croix Review:

In “War in the Twenty-First Century,” Angus MacDonald writes that the world is divided between those that trade together and those that don’t—and the latter are mostly Islamic states. It is the responsibility of the U.S. to overcome militant Islam and thus allow peace to emerge. No other nation has the ability.

Colonel Melvin Kriesel believes that we do not have a firm grasp of essentials in “Know Thy Enemy: Defeating the Islamic Jihad.” He writes that we are facing “one of the deadliest psychological warfare campaigns ever waged.” He urges us to seek for the “political and psychological centers of gravity in this conflict.” He shares what he thinks we must do to win the war.

In the words of Osama bin-Laden and like-minded clerics is “Bin-Laden’s Declaration of War.”

In “One Man’s Passion for Freedom—and Encounters with Extraordinary People” Allan Brownfeld reports on the accomplishments of Leonard Sussman and his fellows in the establishment and actions of Freedom House; in “Whatever Happened to Federalism and the Essential Role of the States?” he reexamines the Tenth Amendment and the thinking of John C. Calhoun.

Herbert London relates, among other things, one of Reagan’s effective jokes in the middle of a meeting in  “My Encounters with President Ronald Reagan”; he writes that the nation is being tested by our terrorist enemies, and that it is necessary for our survival to draw upon our American Heritage to bind the needed resolve to the war effort in “Overcoming National Despair”; he considers recent comments made by South Carolina Senator Ernest Hollings in “Anti-Semitism on This Side of the Atlantic.”

“His Own Words” is a collection of some of Ronald Reagan’s statements.

On the occasion of Ronald Reagan’s 83rd birthday, Margaret Thatcher gave this speech, “A Tribute to Ronald Reagan.”

Edwin Meese III, in “A Courageous Leader,” cites three instances in which Reagan held to his principles and carried through on his policy in the face of severe criticism.

In “Memories of Ronald Reagan” Murray Weidenbaum recalls his time with the president.

Paul Kengor is an historian whose subject is Ronald Reagan. In “Ronald Reagan’s Rainbow” he provides little known details about his youth, his mother, and his writings on Alzheimer’s years before he developed the disease.

Pat Buchanan provides a brief overview of Reagan’s life and accomplishments, in “Goodbye to ‘the Gipper.’” 

John Howard touches on Reagan’s motives in “Leadership Reconsidered.”

In “Reagan’s Obit in the New York Times” Arnold Beichman refutes the view published in the Times.

Craig Payne takes a common sense approach in “Gays and the Meaning of Marriage.”

Thomas Martin, in “The Flightless Birds of Academe,” uses the flights of migrating geese and the writings of one of the first generation of aviators to impress on us the importance of struggle and shared experience. Too many of us live lives within the limits of a coop, though we are intended to “outwit the forces of nature” and to practice a craft, as generations before us had.

Michael Swisher reviews Portrait of the Dynasty, by Peter and Rochelle Schweizer, which is a study of the history of President G. W. Bush’s family.