A Prodigal Search for Self and the South

A Prodigal Search for Self and the South

Where I Come From: Stories from the Deep South By Rick Bragg. Knopf, 2020. Hardcover, 256 pages, $26.95 Reviewed by Owen Edwards Where I Come From by Rick Bragg was published a few months before Uprooted by Grace Olmstead, and has strong resonances with it. Bragg’s...
A Crisis and the Heroic March of Medicine

A Crisis and the Heroic March of Medicine

The Great War and the Birth of Modern Medicine: A History by Thomas Helling, M.D. Pegasus Books, 2022. Hardcover, 496 pages, $32. Reviewed by Karl C. Shaffenburg The inscription on Dr. Thomas Helling’s book, The Great War and the Birth of Modern Medicine: A History...
Scruton Makes His Case

Scruton Makes His Case

Against the Tide: The Best of Roger Scruton’s Columns, Commentaries, and Criticism Edited by Mark Dooley. ‎Bloomsbury Continuum, 2022. Hardcover, 256 pages, $28. Reviewed by John G. Grove How should the conservative respond to a time in which so much seems to be lost?...
A Cryptic Prophecy for the Information Age

A Cryptic Prophecy for the Information Age

Life After Google: The Fall of Big Data and the Rise of the Blockchain Economy by George Gilder. Regnery, 2018. Paperback, 256 pages, $17. Reviewed by Auguste Meyrat Although it seems like ages ago, there was a time when the internet was a fun and exciting place. Like...
Back to the Pro-Life Future

Back to the Pro-Life Future

Defenders of the Unborn: The Pro-Life Movement Before Roe v. Wade by Daniel K. Williams. Oxford University Press, 2016. Hardcover, 380 pages, $35.95. Reviewed by David G. Bonagura, Jr. “Before you know it,” commented NARAL president Lee Gilding in 1973, days after the...
Only the Lover Writes

Only the Lover Writes

Contemplative Realism: A Theological-Aesthetical Manifesto by Joshua Hren. Benedict XVI Institute, 2022. Hardcover, 65 pages, $13. Reviewed by John-Paul Heil Transcontinental voyages provide fecund soil for the seeds of self-reflection. On one such journey, returning...
The Odyssey of ‘The Godfather’

The Odyssey of ‘The Godfather’

Leave The Gun, Take the Cannoli: The Epic Story of the Making of the Godfather By Mark Seal. Gallery Books, 2021. Hardback, 448 pages, $29. Reviewed by Paul Krause I believe in the Godfather. Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather is, possibly, my favorite film. I say...
Americanism and the ‘Roman’ Catholic

Americanism and the ‘Roman’ Catholic

American Catholic: The Politics of Faith During the Cold War by D. G. Hart. Cornell University Press, 2020. Hardback, 280 pages, $29.95 Reviewed by Daniel James Sundahl In 1864, Pope Pius IX issued Syllabus Errorum, outlining heresies opposed to Catholic Church...
Writing, Teaching, Virtues

Writing, Teaching, Virtues

On Revision: The Only Writing That Counts by William Germano. University of Chicago Press, 2021. Paperback, 208 pages, $20. Reviewed by David Hein William Germano, a seasoned teacher and writer who has served as editor-in-chief at Columbia University Press and...
Education as a Moral Enterprise

Education as a Moral Enterprise

McGuffey and His Readers: Piety, Morality, and Education in Nineteenth-Century America by John H. Westerhoff III. Abingdon, 1978. Hardcover, 206 pages. Reviewed by Christine Norvell In the history of education in America, many Americans no longer know how common...