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
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...
"In an age when so many of our inherited institutions seem to be unraveling under the pressures of a restless, self-regarding individualism, it is a rare and welcome thing to encounter a book that speaks with quiet conviction about the things that have long sustained the American
"If classical teachers believe that truth, beauty, and goodness can indeed change the world, then the sort of student (and teacher and school) described by @AnthonyEsolen is a net gain for this world. And his Classical Catechism serves as a helpful tool in building the necessary