It Will Mean What the Words Say!

It Will Mean What the Words Say!

The Essential Works of Thomas More Ed. by Gerard B. Wegemer and Stephen W. Smith. Yale University Press, 2020. Hardcover, 1520 pages, $100. Reviewed by Kenneth Craycraft Three scenes from A Man for All Seasons, Robert Bolt’s play about the elevation and martyrdom of...
Why We’re All Playing Identity Politics

Why We’re All Playing Identity Politics

Why We’re Polarized by Ezra Klein. Simon & Schuster, 2020. Hardcover, 336 pages, $28. Reviewed by Austin Coffey Ezra Klein—the political journalist, blogger, former cable news host, co-founder of Vox, and current editor-at-large thereof—has published his first...
Varieties of the British Right

Varieties of the British Right

Neo-Tories: The Revolt of British Conservatives against Democracy and Political Modernity (1929–1939) by Bernhard Dietz. Bloomsbury Academic, 2018. Hardcover, 328 pages, $120 (Paper, $40.) Reviewed by James Baresel One could easily suspect that a book with the title...
Dorothy L. Sayers’s Tough Love

Dorothy L. Sayers’s Tough Love

The Gospel in Dorothy L. Sayers: Selections from Her Novels, Plays, Letters, and Essays Edited by Carole Vanderhoof. Plough Publishing House, 2018. Paperback, 241 pages, $18. Reviewed by Emina Melonic Famously called by C. S. Lewis “gleefully ogreish,” Dorothy L....
The Arrogance of Blueprints

The Arrogance of Blueprints

A conversation with Amity Shlaes The Bookman is pleased to speak with Amity Shlaes about her new book Great Society: A New History. Amity Shlaes chairs the board of the Calvin Coolidge Presidential Foundation, and is the author of six books, including four New York...
Depths of Hell, Heights of English

Depths of Hell, Heights of English

Paradise Lost: A Primer by Michael Cavanagh. Catholic University of America Press, 2020. Paperback, 256 pages, $30. Reviewed by Casey Chalk There’s great value in reading fictional literature that imagines hell, devils, and the origin of evil—and it’s not just because...
Timing Devices

Timing Devices

Ordinary Time: Poems by Paul Mariani. Slant Books, 2019. Paperback, 80 pages, $11. Reviewed by Daniel James Sundahl The weeks in the Christian liturgical calendar outside the major festal seasons are numbered in ordinary time, First Sunday, Second Sunday, and so on,...
Sources for Rebuilding

Sources for Rebuilding

A Time to Build: From Family and Community to Congress and the Campus, How Recommitting to Our Institutions Can Revive the American Dream by Yuval Levin. Basic Books, 2020. Hardcover, 256 pages, $28. By Anthony M. Barr “When they were filled, he said unto his...
The Winter Sportsmen-Soldiers

The Winter Sportsmen-Soldiers

The Winter Army: The World War II Odyssey of the 10th Mountain Division, America’s Elite Alpine Warriors by Maurice Isserman. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2019. Hardcover, 318 pages, $28. Reviewed by William F. Meehan III I judged Maurice Isserman’s book by its cover...
The Elon Musk of Botany Bay?

The Elon Musk of Botany Bay?

The Multifarious Mr. Banks: From Botany Bay to Kew, The Natural Historian Who Shaped the World By Toby Musgrave. Yale University Press, 2020. Hardcover, 357 pp., $35. Reviewed by Karl C. Schaffenburg In current usage “multifarious” refers to a thing that demonstrates...