Why Public Reason Fails

Why Public Reason Fails

Tradition and the Deliberative Turn: A Critique of Contemporary Democratic Theory By Ryan R. Holston.  State University of New York Press, 2023. Paperback, 218 pages, $34.95. Reviewed by Gene Callahan. Political theorists have recently devoted a great amount of...
The Patterns of Living

The Patterns of Living

Cities Alive: Jane Jacobs, Christopher Alexander, and the Roots of the New Urban Renaissance by Michael W. Mehaffy. Sustasis Press, 2017. Paperback, $20. Reviewed by Gene Callahan I first encountered the work of the great urban theorist Jane Jacobs due to the...
Language, Chance, and Science

Language, Chance, and Science

The Language Hoax: Why the World Looks the Same in Any Language by John H. McWhorter. Oxford University Press, 2016. Hardcover, 208 pages, $20. Reviewed by Gene Callahan John H. McWhorter is a linguist at Columbia University, and a fascinating and sometimes...
The (Mis)measure of Man

The (Mis)measure of Man

The Tyranny of Metrics by Jerry Z. Muller. Princeton University Press, 2018. Hardcover, 220 pages, $25. Reviewed by Gene Callahan One way of defining “rationalism” (when the term is understood as a flaw rather than a virtue) is that it is the attempt to replace...