The Grandiose Moralist
The Second Mountain: The Quest for a Moral Life by David Brooks. Random House, 2019. Hardcover, 384 pages, $28. Reviewed by Paul Brian David Brooks has a new book full of old ideas—and a lot of self-righteous platitudes thrown in for good measure. The Second Mountain...
A Justified Confessions
Confessions by Augustine, translated by Thomas Williams. Hackett Publishing Company, 2019. Paperback, 344 pages, $11. Reviewed by Eve Tushnet Thomas Williams spends a decent chunk of the introduction to his new translation of St. Augustine’s Confessions justifying its...
Psychedelic Utopia
Outside Looking In: A Novel by T. C. Boyle Ecco, 2019. Hardcover, 400 pages, $28. Reviewed by Scott Beauchamp “Honesty and wisdom are such a delightful pastime, at another person’s expense!” —Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Blithedale Romance It isn’t too much of a...
The Six Communal Institutions and the Modern Economy
Hired: Six Months Undercover in Low-Wage Britain by James Bloodworth. Atlantic Books, 2019. paperback, 288 pages, $16. By Gerard T. Mundy Communal institutions keep the classical liberal–free market state from implosion. As the strength of what this essay identifies...
For America250, @lsheahan enters the fray:
What the American Revolution Secured: Order, Justice, and Freedom
A "revolution not made, but prevented.” Russell Kirk fondly and frequently quoted E. J. Payne’s pithy summary of Burke’s view of the Glorious Revolution.
"So yes, Lord Alfred, perhaps you are right after all. ’Tis not too late to seek a newer world! Perhaps one last Ulyssean adventure remains beyond the sunset, and perhaps some work of noble note may yet be done."