The Six Communal Institutions and the Modern Economy
Hired: Six Months Undercover in Low-Wage Britain by James Bloodworth. Atlantic Books, 2019. paperback, 288 pages, $16. By Gerard T. Mundy Communal institutions keep the classical liberal–free market state from implosion. As the strength of what this essay identifies...
Fault Lines in American Identity
Pop Culture and the Dark Side of the American Dream: Con Men, Gangsters, Drug Lords, and Zombies by Paul A. Cantor University Press of Kentucky, 2019. Hardcover, 224 pages, $40. Reviewed by Harrison F. Dietzman Anna Sorokin, an émigré fashion student of modest means,...
Baseball, Out of Time?
Why Baseball Matters By Susan Jacoby. Yale University Press, 2018. Hardcover, 224 pages, $26. Reviewed by Caden McCann Baseball remains one of the most profitable sports franchises in the country, trailing just behind football and basketball. In Why Baseball Matters,...
The Loyalist Arguments
God against the Revolution: The Loyalist Clergy’s Case against the American Revolution by Gregg L. Frazer. University Press of Kansas, 2018. Hardcover, 320 pages, $35. Reviewed by William Anthony Hay Historians over recent decades have put considerable effort...
Placing Chaucer
Chaucer: A European Life by Marion Turner. Princeton University Press, 2019. Hardcover, 624 pages, $40. Reviewed by Carl Rollyson We know so little about Shakespeare’s life. The facts could be put onto no more than a page. That has not prevented biographers from...
A Life in Liberal Internationalism
Our Man: Richard Holbrooke and the End of the American Century by George Packer. Knopf, 2019. Hardcover, 608 pages, $30. Reviewed by Francis P. Sempa Richard Holbrooke’s life and career as a member of the American foreign policy establishment symbolized the decline...
The Revolution is Still Permanent
Permanent Revolution: The Reformation and the Illiberal Roots of Liberalism by James Simpson. Belknap Press, 2019. Hardcover, 464 pages, $35. Reviewed by Micah Meadowcroft For those who can competently read it’s a regrettable feature of life that the interpolation of...
John Lukacs: Reactionary, Not Conservative
By John P. McCarthy On May 6th I received an email that historian John Lukacs had died at the age of ninety-five. Looking up, I was startled to notice twelve of his books on the bookshelf immediately behind my computer. Such was the measure of the man that I wanted to...
John Milton, Latin Love Poet
John Milton’s The Book of Elegies translated by A. M. Juster The Paideia Institute for Humanistic Study, Inc., 2019. Paperback, 135 pages, $15. Reviewed by Patrick Callahan As we are told Mount Helicon had two fonts of poetry, so we witness in recent years an...
There are metaphorical hills on which I would be willing to die. The Oxford comma is one of them.
So easy to forget that the best way to educate yourself is to read great works of literature and philosophy, then talk about them. Bring back the salon!