Beyond Black and White

Beyond Black and White

The Man Who Lived Underground by Richard Wright. Library of America, 2021. Hardcover, 240 pages, $23. Reviewed by James E. Hartley Richard Wright’s most recently published novel is a cause célèbre. The Man Who Lived Underground, originally written in 1941, was...
The Last Honest Pagan

The Last Honest Pagan

Far from Respectable: Dave Hickey and His Art by Daniel Oppenheimer. University of Texas Press, 2021 Hardcover, 152 pages, $24.95. Reviewed by Scott Beauchamp “The pagan set out, with admirable sense, to enjoy himself. By the end of his civilization he had discovered...
Geopolitics in a Godless Age

Geopolitics in a Godless Age

Political Theology of International Order by William Bain. Oxford University Press, 2020. Hardcover, 272 pages, $85. Reviewed by John Ehrett Few academic fields today feel more unabashedly secular than international relations. Traditionally, the major division in the...
Jeanne Demessieux: A Great Organist’s Centenary

Jeanne Demessieux: A Great Organist’s Centenary

By Robert James Stove What makes organists tick? Denis Arnold (1926–1986), British biographer of Bach and Monteverdi, thought that he knew. In 1983 he remarked: “Organists have to be neat men: their mistakes do not, like a doctor’s, quietly die, but are all too...
Can Progressivism Be Reversed?

Can Progressivism Be Reversed?

America Transformed: The Rise and Legacy of American Progressivism by Ronald J. Pestritto. Encounter Books, 2021. Hardcover, 288 pages, $29. Reviewed by John C. Chalberg If Ronald Pestritto is right, then Barack Obama was wrong. Recall candidate Obama’s now famous (or...