A Singular Universal
The Unquiet Englishman: A Life of Graham Greene by Richard Greene. W. W. Norton, 2021. Hardcover, xvi + 591 pp., $40. Reviewed by Adam Schwartz Jean-Paul Sartre once classified Gustave Flaubert as a “singular universal.” For Sartre, such a writer’s oeuvre becomes a...
Ordinary Time
The Mystery of It All: The Vocation of Poetry in the Twilight of Modernity by Paul Mariani Paraclete Press, 2019 Paperback, 240 pages, $25 Review by Daniel James Sundahl There’s a moment in ordinary time when Dr. William Carlos Williams writes of passing a young...
Have We Forgotten Solzhenitsyn?
Solzhenitsyn and American Culture: The Russian Soul and the West Edited by David P. Deavel and Jessica Hooten Wilson. University of Notre Dame Press, 2020. Hardcover, 400 pages, $60. Reviewed by Jeremy A. Kee The world is not changed by those whose voices are joined...
Conservatism: A View from Sweden
Modern konservatism: filosofi, bärande idéer och inriktningar i Burkes efterföljd by Jakob Söderbaum. Recito Förlag (Sweden), 2020. Hardcover, 311 pages. Reviewed by Br. Augustine Wärnberg In recent years there has been a significant development in the conservative...
Class Power and Cultural Blindspots
The New Class War: Saving Democracy from the Managerial Elite by Michael Lind. Penguin, 2020. Hardcover, 193 pages, $25. Reviewed by Bruce P. Frohnen The rise of populist movements throughout the West and the intense, angry response to them from technocratic elites...
Coopting Modernity
Making China Modern: From the Great Qing to Xi Jinping by Klaus Mühlhahn. The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2019. Hardcover, 736 pages, $40. Reviewed by Jason Morgan For decades, many Western China-watchers were convinced that, given time, the People’s...
Can the State Punish Thoughtcrime?
A Melanchthonian Analysis E. J. Hutchinson There have been a slew of comments in recent months suggesting that ideological woke progressivism is a new religion manqué (the reference to the left hand is intentional), a bottomless reservoir both of false...
The Russell Kirk Center at 25
A Historian’s Perspective Dr. George H. Nash In October 2020 the Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal celebrated its first twenty-five years of existence. It provided an occasion to reflect on the significance of Kirk’s work and its bearing on the purposes and...
Scholarly Blinders and the Diversity of Authoritarianism
The Decline and Rise of Democracy: A Global History from Antiquity to Today by David Stasavage. Princeton University Press, 2020. Hardcover, 424 pages, $35. Reviewed by Julian G. Waller The authoritarian regimes of today are nothing like those of yesterday, and...
Timely, for sure. Hope @realdonaldtrump is reading.