Imagined Americas
After Nationalism: Being American in an Age of Division by Samuel Goldman. University of Pennsylvania Press, 2021. Hardcover, 208 pages, $24.95. Reviewed by John G. Grove In After Virtue, Alasdair MacIntyre described a world in which moral language had lost all...
Facing the Past
Calhoun: American Heretic by Robert Elder. Basic Books, 2021. Hardcover, 656 pages, $35. Reviewed by Miles Smith IV In his 1953 opus The Conservative Mind, Russell Kirk summed up John Calhoun’s contribution to intellectual conservatism succinctly when he noted that...
Nerve Plasm Palpitations?
Conscience: The Origins of Moral Intuition by Patricia S. Churchland W. W. Norton & Company, 2019. Hardback, $27.95 Reviewed by Daniel James Sundahl A caveat to a common reader who might think to read Patricia Churchland’s Conscience: The Origins of Moral...
Free Ride
Why We Drive: Toward a Philosophy of the Open Road by Matthew Crawford. William Morrow, 2020. Hardcover, 368 pages, $29. Reviewed by Addison Del Mastro “When you ride alone, you ride with Hitler!” So reads a famous American propaganda poster from World War II,...
Aristotle’s Timely Guide to Human Happiness
By Auguste Meyrat One of the paradoxes of modernity is that as living has become easier and more pleasurable, people have become sadder. Depression and loneliness were already major problems in the developed world, and have become even worse with the COVID-19...
Is the Religious Right Really so Incomprehensible?
Religion and the Rise of Capitalism By Benjamin M. Freidman. Alfred A. Knopf, 2021. Hardcover, 560 pages, $37.50 Reviewed by James E. Hartley Sometimes it seems like discussions in this country are taking place in two isolated camps. Every now and then, that suspicion...
How to Read the News and Stay Happy
Reading the Times: A Literary and Theological Inquiry into the News by Jeffrey Bilbro. InterVarsity Press, 2021. Hardcover, 200 pages, $24. Reviewed by Casey Chalk “We’re going to win so much, you may even get tired of winning,” proclaimed then-presidential candidate...
Snowden Speaks of Africa
By Anika T. Prather “I’ve known rivers ancient as the world and older than the Flow of human blood in human veins. My soul has grown deep like the rivers.” —Langston Hughes, “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” African Americans have always dreamed of another world. We have...
Killing the Boomers
Boomers: The Men and Women Who Promised Freedom and Delivered Disaster by Helen Andrews. Sentinel, 2021. Hardcover, 256 pages, $27. Reviewed by Anthony M. Barr My history thesis advisor in college was fond of saying that one of the main drivers in new scholarship is...
Listen in to hear @ubookman editor @lsheahan discuss the current state of education with @svngelephants, @caylanford, and @Brooke_Medina_
This Tuesday I'm excited to welcome an all-star panel to have a real conversation about education, including @lsheahan, @caylanford, and @Brooke_Medina_
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