America’s Image Abroad

America’s Image Abroad

by | Sep 7, 2008

Why America is Such a Hard Sell: Beyond Pride and Prejudice by Juliana Geran Pilon Rowman & Littlefield (Lanham, Md.) 280 pp., $26.95 paper, 2007 The question that Juliana Geran Pilon asks in Why America Is Such a Hard Sell is not at all rhetorical. We are the...
Acton in Italy

Acton in Italy

by | Sep 7, 2008

Lord Acton, Il Liberalismo Etico Edited By Massimo Baldini. Armando Editore (Rome) 125 pp., $18.53 paper, 2006For several months now Italian bookshops have been selling a priceless collection of the thoughts and sayings of one of the greatest “Catholic Liberals” of...

The Prince Redeemed

by | Sep 7, 2008

The Prince of Darkness: 50 Years Reporting in Washington by Robert Novak. Crown Forum (New York) 662 pp., $29.95 cloth, 2007 If Hollywood is home to “kiss and tell” memoirs, should Washington be the source of the “kiss up and tell” variety? Not if you’re the...

Rhyming the Right

by | Sep 7, 2008

The Conservative Poets: A Contemporary Anthology Edited by William Baer. University of Evansville Press (Evansville, Ind.) 182 pp., $20.00 cloth, 2006.When you put fifteen important poets (most of them teachers and prolific publishers of poetry, prose, and criticism)...

The Non-Human World of China Miéville

by | Sep 7, 2008

Although I do not particularly admire the criticism of Harold Bloom, his Freudian theory that ambitious authors want to “kill” their strong literary predecessors is getting a lot of empirical support these days from British fantasy writers, first from Phillip Pullman,...

Farewells and Looking Ahead

by | Sep 7, 2008

By the time this issue reaches our subscribers, the nation will have chosen its two contending nominees for President. Unfortunately, the current candidates do not seem to have taken to heart the advice suggested by Christopher Layne, whose book, No More Illusions, is...

The Problem with the World is You?

by | Sep 7, 2008

God’s Politics: Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn’t Get it by Jim Wallis. New York: HarperCollins, 2005, 2006. 432 pages. Nearly a century ago G. K. Chesterton asked “what’s wrong with the world?” His first and last answer was always the same: “I am.” In...

The Judicial Mask

by | Jul 29, 2008

A new Bookman online review from Gerald J. Russello covers How Judges Think by Richard A. Posner.

Removing the Judicial Mask

by | Jul 29, 2008

How Judges Think by Richard A. Posner (Harvard University Press, 2008), 387 pp, $29.95The debate over judicial nominees follows a well-worn script. Conservatives lament “activist” judges and advocate for “strict construction” of the Constitution. They are especially...

Eliot Conference

by | Jul 23, 2008

The Kirk Center is co-sponsoring a conference on T. S. Eliot on August 14–16, 2008 in conjunction with the new edition of Dr. Kirk’s book, Eliot and His Age. See the conference page for details. A full schedule is now available.