Democracy and Iniquity

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

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

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

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...
Desire Is the Human Condition

Desire Is the Human Condition

Wanting: The Power of Mimetic Desire in Everyday Life by Luke Burgis. St Martins Press, 2021. Hardcover, 304 pp, $29. Reviewed by Thomas J Bevan “All are lunatics,” Ambrose Bierce once said, “but he who can analyze his delusion is called a philosopher.” And the...
Wild, and the Problem of Evil

Wild, and the Problem of Evil

All Things Left Wild: A Novel by James Wade. Blackstone Publishing, 2020. Hardcover, 304 pages, $28. Reviewed by‏ Christopher Landrum Life in itself is neither good nor evil; it is the scene of good or evil, as you make it. And, if you have lived a day, you have seen...
‘God, If There Was a God’

‘God, If There Was a God’

Missionaries: A Novel by Phil Klay. Penguin Press, 2020, Hardcover, 416 pages, $28. Reviewed by Joshua Hren It isn’t surprising that Joseph Ratzinger’s Introduction to Christianity begins by immersing us in the rejection thereof, the highways of doubt and the...
A People’s History of Philadelphia

A People’s History of Philadelphia

Philadelphia Stories: People and Their Places in Early America by C. Dallett Hemphill, edited by Rodney Hessinger and Daniel K. Richter. University of Pennsylvania Press, 2021. Hardcover, 392 pages, $35. Reviewed by Addison Del Mastro Philadelphia Stories: People and...
The Place of Punctuation in Literary Art

The Place of Punctuation in Literary Art

Mark My Words: Profiles of Punctuation in Modern Literature by Lee Clark Mitchell. Bloomsbury Academic, 2020. Softcover, 166 pages, $15. Reviewed by Oliver Spivey Many literature professors have long expressed their embarrassment at simply professing literature. Not...
An Education for the Future

An Education for the Future

Glory in All Things: St. Benedict and Catholic Education Today by André Gushurst-Moore. Angelico Press, 2020. Paperback, 170 pages, $17.95. Reviewed by John C. Pinheiro Controversy in Catholic education did not begin with the 1967 Land O’Lakes Declaration. How best to...