In Praise of Jesuit Humanism
By Patrick Callahan Today the Piazza d’Aracoeli is a small row of umbrella pines and a bus station tucked below the Victor Emmanuel II Monument. Compared to the imposing white façade of this tomb of the unknown soldier, there is little to capture the imagination of...
On Ian Fleming as Craftsman
by Jordan M. Poss According to Ian Fleming, writing in 1963, “the craft of writing sophisticated thrillers is almost dead.” This provocation, the opening line of his essay, “How to Write a Thriller,” may be evergreen. It was difficult then and is difficult now to find...
Daniel Silva: Thriller Writer of the Soul
By Henry George The world of international espionage thriller writing is a crowded one. There are many writers plowing a similar furrow, all attempting to transport the reader to a world the mirror of our own, enlarged to fit the author’s imagination and the reader’s...
Lawyers, Natural Law, and the Problem of Pride
The Decline of Natural Law: How American Lawyers Once Used Natural Law and Why They Stopped by Stuart Banner. Oxford University Press, 2021. Hardcover, 264 pages, $50. Reviewed by Bruce P. Frohnen This important book picks up where R. H. Helmholz’s groundbreaking...
The Egotistic Mind
The Parasitic Mind: How Infectious Ideas Are Killing Common Sense by Gad Saad. Regnery, 2021. Hardcover, 235 pages, $29. Reviewed by Auguste Meyrat Considering the great damage done by leftist ideas throughout history and the great damage they do today, it’s a great...
Democracy and Iniquity
We the Fallen People: The Founders and the Future of American Democracy by Robert Tracy McKenzie. IVP Academic, 2021. Hardcover, 304 pages, $28. Reviewed by Casey Chalk As U.S. troops continued their exit from Afghanistan this summer, a former high-school history...
Transportation Reform and City Renewal
Confessions of a Recovering Engineer: Transportation for a Strong Town By Charles L. Marohn Jr. Wiley, 2021. Hardcover, 272 pages, $25. Reviewed by Jason Jewell On the evening of December 3, 2014, seven-year-old Destiny Gonzalez was hit by a drunk driver on State...
Gazing Into the Abyss with Charles Taylor
Avenues of Faith: Conversations with Jonathan Guilbault by Charles Taylor, trans. by Yanette Shalter. Baylor University Press, 2020. Hardcover, 92 pages, $30. Reviewed by Jeffrey Wald I love short books. I love long books too; completing War and Peace a few years back...
Reconnecting Babbitt, Rejecting Rousseau
The Historical Mind: Humanistic Renewal in a Post-Constitutional Age, Justin D. Garrison and Ryan R. Holston, eds. State University of New York Press, 2020. Paperback, 326 pages, $34. Reviewed by Jason C. Phillips On January 26, 2021, President Biden announced a...
Summer is here and the days are long. Slowing schedules allow time for many of us to sink into the queue of books that have been patiently waiting for us over the busyness of our end of spring schedules.
@lsheahan, @DavidGBonaguraJ, @darrellfalconbu
Ah, just your typical 663-page light summer beach read for a @ubookman book review. Makes Wealth of Nations look like a Substack essay.