Hebraic Ideas at the Founding
Jewish Roots of American Liberty: The Impact of Hebraic Ideas on the American Story Edited By Wilfred McClay and Stuart Halpern. Encounter Books, 2025. Hardcover, 304 pages, $32.99. Reviewed by Daniel James Sundahl. When approaching the American Founding, it’s typical...
What We’re Reading
Luke C. Sheahan, Editor Ah, summer. The sun is for shining as books are for reading. The new imprint Creed & Culture yields two of my summer titles: Patrick Deneen’s American Odyssey: What an Ancient Story Reveals about Our Divided Souls and Michael Lucchese’s...
Gordon Wood and the Verisimilitudes of Consensus History
The Creation of the American Republic, 1776-1787 By Gordon S. Wood. UNC Press, 1969/1998. Paperback, 680 pages, $45.95. The Rising Glory of America, 1760-1820 Edited by Gordon S. Wood. Northeastern University Press, 1971/1990. Hardcover, 352 pages, $44.42. The...
Forming the American Imagination
The American Book of Fables By Matthew Mehan. Sophia Institute Press, 2026. Hardcover, 396 pages, $39.95. Reviewed by Shaun Rieley. “If a man were permitted to make all the ballads,” wrote eighteenth-century Scottish political theorist Andrew Fletcher, “he need not...
A Man for All Seasons
Dispatches from the Late Republic: The Culture, Politics, and Prophets of American Greatness, Decline, and Rebirth By Michael Anton. Encounter Books, 2026. Hardcover, 408 pages, $34.99. Reviewed by Bradley C. S. Watson. Michael Anton burst onto the national political...
Finding Faith in Fiction
Wondrous Reading: Encountering the Catholic Faith in Children’s Literature By LuElla D’Amico. Cascade Books, 2025. Paperback, 162 pages, $23. Reviewed by Christine Norvell. A Presbyterian minister told me that many of the young parents in her inner city church...
The Liturgical Key to Tolkien
The High Hallow: Tolkien’s Liturgical Imagination By Ben Reinhard. Emmaus Road Publishing, 2025. Hardcover, 184 pages, $24.95. Reviewed by Benjamin J. Volpe. “My living room bookcase has an entire shelf filled with Tolkien’s works and works commenting on Tolkien’s...
To Find Eyes to See
More Than a Matter of Taste: The Moral Imagination and the Spirit of Literature By Joshua Hren. Word on Fire Luminor, 2026. Paperback, 392 pages, $29.95. Reviewed by Nadya Williams. The year after Euripides died (406 BC), Athenian theater-goers who flocked to see...
Rural America as It Really Is
Faith, Family, and Flag: Branson Entertainment and the Idea of America By Joanna Dee Das. University of Chicago Press, 2025. Hardcover, 272 pages, $27.50. Reviewed by Jason C. Phillips. Over the last eighteen months, I have twice visited Branson, Missouri. Over the...
This is good. I’d like to see a follow up piece on Wood’s The American Revolution and on Power & Liberty. Also, maybe some comment on the essay in The Idea of America that walks back the claim in Creation that 1789 marked the end of classical
Politics (the button interests and
“Anton’s book, and his entire worldview, stand as direct challenges to elite preferences and institutions: Okay, boomer, what next?”
Quite the review of Michael Anton's book from Brad Watson in @KirkCenter's @ubookman. https://kirkcenter.org/reviews/a-man-for-all-seasons/