For six centuries, from the Renaissance forward, the architects and creators of modernity have promised and predicted a new world, one which, in Thomas Jefferson’s immortal words, would be dedicated to “the pursuit of happiness.” The birth of that world in its political aspect is being celebrated this year in the United States, as well as, to some extent or another, throughout the West.

This phrase, so vague and rhetorical as to be meaningless, is also the best definition there is of the modern project. Hence the 250th anniversary of the birth of the US is an obvious moment to consider how far America, and with it the world it has so radically influenced, have advanced since 1776.

Are we allowed to feel angry yet?

Belfast and the truth about ‘alien cultures’

Keir Starmer’s weakness was on display at PMQs

Christians have, for 2,000 years, seen this Earth as a vale of tears and life here as a trial, a view that no other religion has essentially contradicted. Nonetheless, it has never prevented Christians from affirming that life is a gift from God and existence a blessing. In 1776, human society, in North America as everywhere else in the world, was recognizably a highly imperfect thing in which unhappiness, misery, suffering and injustice preponderated over happiness, well-being, contentment and justice. A........

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