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
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 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...Nobody Expects the Spanish Inquisition … to Be Explained Fairly
Bearing False Witness: Debunking Centuries of Anti-Catholic History by Rodney Stark. Templeton Press, 2016. Hardcover, 280 pages, $28. Rodney Stark, while doing research into the history of religion, discovered that the popular history of Catholicism is rife with...
"Delsol’s analysis stands out for the breadth of its perspective. Her essay covers topics as varied as corporatism, the French love for status and strikes, immigration, religion and secularism, populism and the role of intellectuals, Jacobinism, and the EU..."