Aliens to Life

Aliens to Life

The Extinction of Experience: Being Human in a Disembodied World By Christine Rosen. W.W. Norton and Co., 2024. Hardcover, 272 pages, $29.99. Reviewed by J. Camden Kidwell. Eighteen years have passed since Steve Jobs released a device capable of putting cyberspace...
The Postwar British Conservative Movement

The Postwar British Conservative Movement

Blue Jerusalem: British Conservatism, Winston Churchill, and the Second World War By Kit Kowol. Oxford University Press, 2024. Hardcover, 352 pages, $38.99. Reviewed by Daniel Pitt. In Benjamin Disraeli’s great novel, Lothair, Mr. Phoebus remarks, “Books are fatal;...
Leisure and the Lost Ascent 

Leisure and the Lost Ascent 

An essay on Josef Pieper’s “Leisure: The Basis of Culture”  By Catherine Contonio. The modern world no longer recognizes the Greeks’ concept of leisure. The Greeks, in turn, would no longer recognize the modern notion of work, which has spread to cover the whole of...
William F. Buckley’s Cold War

William F. Buckley’s Cold War

The Fall of the Berlin Wall By William F. Buckley, Jr.  John Wiley & Sons Inc., 2004. Hardcover, 212 pages, $19.95. Reviewed by Michael Lucchese. As conservatives mark the centenary of William F. Buckley, Jr.’s birth, one of the most-celebrated aspects of his...
Climate Realism in an Alarmed Age

Climate Realism in an Alarmed Age

Climate and Energy: The Case for Realism Edited by E. Calvin Beisner and David R. Legates. Regnery Publishing, 2024. Hardcover, 480 pages, $29.99. Reviewed by Joshua J. Bowman. Calvin Beisner and David Legates’s edited volume, Climate and Energy, seeks to bring...
Bring Back the Virtues, Medieval Style

Bring Back the Virtues, Medieval Style

Ask of Old Paths: Medieval Virtues and Vices for a Whole and Holy Life By Grace Hamman. Zondervan Academic, 2025. Hardcover, 224 pages, $29.99. Reviewed by Nadya Williams. A few years ago, my husband and I learned we were expecting a girl. As we were considering...
Is Religion Becoming Obsolete?

Is Religion Becoming Obsolete?

Why Religion Went Obsolete: The Demise of Traditional Faith in America By Christian Smith. Oxford University Press, 2025. Hardcover, 440 pages, $34.99. Reviewed by Phil Davignon. The question of whether religion is dying in the United States has long intrigued social...
Still Having Trouble with Gender

Still Having Trouble with Gender

Trouble With Gender: Sex Facts, Gender Fictions By Alex Byrne. Polity Press, 2023. Hardcover, 320 pages, $29.95. Reviewed by Nathanael Blake. America is confused about gender, and MIT philosophy professor Alex Byrne is here to help. Earlier this year, Byrne faced down...
Eric Voegelin’s Later Thought

Eric Voegelin’s Later Thought

Eric Voegelin’s Late Meditations and Essays. Critical Commentary Companions. Edited by Michael Franz. St. Augustine’s Press, 2023. Paperback, 375 pages, $32.00. Reviewed by Lee Trepanier. One of the most important political philosophers of the twentieth century, Eric...