Can Bureaucrats Be Virtuous?

Can Bureaucrats Be Virtuous?

When the State Meets the Street: Public Service and Moral Agency by Bernardo Zacka. Belknap Press, 2017. Hardcover, 320 pages, $35. Reviewed by John Ehrett It’s easy to view the modern administrative state as a faceless regulatory apparatus, or a lumbering...
A Rewarding Experience Awaits

A Rewarding Experience Awaits

Rendez-vous with Art by Philippe de Montebello and Martin Gayford. Thames & Hudson, 2014. Hardcover, 248 pages, $35. Reviewed by Stephen Schmalhofer  While his cause lingers, if Dante were to be canonized, museum patrons will have a patron saint. As tourists...
Haiti’s Role in the American Civil War

Haiti’s Role in the American Civil War

The Slaveholding Crisis: Fear of Insurrection and the Coming of the Civil War by Carl Lawrence Paulus. LSU Press, 2017. Hardcover, 328 pages, $49. Reviewed by Kyle Sammin In the teaching of American history, the United States is often portrayed as going it alone....
On Dragon Hunting

On Dragon Hunting

James V. Schall, S. J.   Heywood Broun’s very short story, The Fifty-First Dragon, was published in 1921 by Harcourt Brace. It concerns a medieval school for the formation of knights. Matriculating in this school is an apparently inept candidate by the ironic name of...
Persuasion in the Age of Twitter

Persuasion in the Age of Twitter

How to Win an Argument: An Ancient Guide to the Art of Persuasion by Marcus Tullius Cicero, translated and edited by James M. May. Princeton University Press, 2016. Hardcover, 288 pages, $17. Reviewed by David G. Bonagura, Jr. It is no secret that American public...