Rethinking Association
Why Associations Matter: The Case for First Amendment Pluralism by Luke C. Sheahan. University Press of Kansas, 2020. Hardcover, 227 pages, $35. Reviewed by Bruce P. Frohnen On one level Luke Sheahan’s excellent book is a practical, lawyerly brief aiming to correct a...
A Mind-Body Problem in Chinese Philosophy?
Mind and Body in Early China: Beyond Orientalism and the Myth of Holism by Edward Slingerland. Oxford University Press, 2019. Cloth, xi + 385 pages, $35. Reviewed by Jason Morgan When Scottish missionary James Legge (1815–1897) translated, partly under the auspices of...
The Sources of Russian Aggression
Putin’s World: Russia Against the West and with the Rest by Angela Stent. Twelve, 2019. Hardcover, 448 pages, $30. Russia’s Crony Capitalism: The Path from Market Economy to Kleptocracy by Anders Åslund. Yale University Press, 2019. Hardcover, 320 pages, $35. Reviewed...
Tories and True Believers
Small Men on the Wrong Side of History: The Decline, Fall, and Unlikely Return of Conservatism By Ed West. London: Constable, 2020. Hardcover, 426 pages, $29. Reviewed by Derek Turner The story of conservatism since 1945 has been one of failure wrapped up in frequent...
A Paean to Craftsmanship
Works and Days by Hesiod, translated by A. E. Stallings. Penguin Classics, 2018. Paperback, 112 pages, $8.45. Reviewed by J. L. Wall The new Penguin edition of Hesiod’s Works and Days includes a map. This is a curious decision. There are no journeys in the poem,...
From Caliphate to Nation States
Sunnis and Shi’a: A Political History by Laurence Louër. Princeton University Press, 2020. Hardcover, 240 pages, $29.95. Reviewed by Garrett Robinson With the death of Hussein ibn Ali, grandson of Muhammad and the third imam, at the Battle of Karbala in 680, the unity...
Is Singapore the Future?
Edge of Chaos: Why Democracy Is Failing to Deliver Economic Growth—and How to Fix It by Dambisa Moyo. Basic Books, 2018. Hardcover, 296 pages, $30. Reviewed by Gilbert NMO Morris Dambisa Moyo is exhaustless, insightful, even passionate concerning the evolving...
Our Robotic Future
SAM: One Robot, a Dozen Engineers, and the Race to Revolutionize the Way We Build by Jonathan Waldman. Simon & Schuster, 2020. Hardcover, 267 pages, $28. Reviewed by Faith Bottum If you’re looking for a great tale of entrepreneurial pluck and technological...
An Architect Reconsiders ‘The Architecture of Servitude and Boredom’
By Erik Bootsma When Russell Kirk wrote “The Architecture of Servitude and Boredom” in the early 1980s, one would be hard pressed to find architecture at a lower point. In his essay, Dr. Kirk describes how it came to pass that over the course of the previous forty...
A great review of my collection of poetry @ubookman which highlights that "poetry has always been about love—about the heavens and the burning passion of the human heart." Read the review, then read and enjoy the music of poetry and let your heart soar!
https://kirkcenter.org/reviews/following-dantes-footsteps/