Spring 2016 Newsletter
The Spring 2016 issue of the Kirk Center’s newsletter, Permanent Things, is now available for download. This issue features reports of participation in a liberal–conservative summit held by the Kirk Center and the Hauenstein Center, recent seminars, and a profile of a...A Return to the Thought-Murders
Ravelstein, by Saul Bellow. Viking, 2000. 233 pages.Ravelstein, Saul Bellow’s roman à clef about the last years of philosopher-provocateur Allan Bloom, may be the best post-9/11 novel published in the year 2000. Ravelstein has as many virtues as its subject has...Last Scholastic Standing
Neo-Scholastic Essays by Edward Feser. St. Augustine’s Press, 2015. Paperback, 392 pages, $26. Reviewed by Ryan Shinkel When the Prodigal Son decided to auction off his inheritance, his half of the estate did not disappear. Rather, the number of owners and of...Did the Burger Court Suffer from the ‘Greenhouse Effect?’
The Burger Court and the Rise of the Judicial Right, by Michael J. Graetz and Linda Greenhouse. Simon and Schuster, 2016. Hardcover, 468 pp., $30. The two authors of this provocative book are card-carrying members of the legal elite, and their work is a revisionist...A Partial Introduction to Black Conservatism
Black Conservatism: Essays in Intellectual and Political History edited by Peter Eisenstadt. Routledge, 2015. Paperback, 328 pages, $55. Black Conservatism, a collection edited by Peter Eisenstadt, is an introduction to the lives of lesser-known figures who can be...Books in Little: Notes towards the Restoration of a Nation in Crisis
The Way Back: Restoring the Promise of America by F. H. Buckley. Encounter Books, 2016. Hardcover, 359 pages, $28. A professor at George Mason School of Law, F. H. Buckley is one of the must-read contributors to The American Spectator and The American...Notes from a Smaller, Freer Island
by Derek Turner Living on an island does strange things to souls. Being surrounded by water can even make whole nations feel they are under special protection—protected by Providence, singled out for Something. Some zephyr of open sea seems to reach to even the...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...Books in Little: The Myth of Islamic Spain
The Myth of the Andalusian Paradise: Muslims, Christians, and Jews under Islamic Rule in Medieval Spain by Darío Fernández-Morera. ISI Books, 2016. Hardcover, 358 pages, $30. This is a brave book, and one must assume that its author is tenured, for the book...
"Ferenc Hörcher and Dan Pitt... seem timed to match this shift in popular discourse. Intellectual Conservatism offers a history of English political ideas to a new and motivated audience. Limiting focus on Britain paradoxically enhances the book’s usefulness in other countries."
I am most grateful for a perceptive and cogent review of Intellectual Conservatism: From Burke to Scruton by @shawn_whatley via @ubookman.
Link: https://kirkcenter.org/reviews/ideas-matter-now-more-than-ever/