Weaponized Christianity
The Idol of Our Age: How the Religion of Humanity Subverts Christianity By Daniel J. Mahoney Foreword by Pierre Manent. Encounter Books, 2018. Hardcover, 163 pages, $24. Reviewed by Grant Havers In this age of numerous polemics against “political correctness,” “Social...
Narrating the Future
Looming Civil War: How Nineteenth-Century Americans Imagined the Future By Jason Phillips. Oxford University Press, 2018. Hardcover, 320 pages, $35. Reviewed by Carl Lawrence Paulus “What is past is prologue.” William Shakespeare’s line from The Tempest is inscribed...
Writing from the Edge of the Middle
Interior States: Essays by Meghan O’Gieblyn. Anchor, 2018. Paperback, 240 pages, $16. Reviewed by Veery Huleatt I learned to see myself as an anachronism when I was about nine, when I caught sight of my reflection overlaid on the posters of beautiful women advertising...
Two Tolkiens on View
Two Tolkiens on View Tolkien: Maker of Middle Earth [Exhibition catalogue] Edited by Catherine McIlwaine. Bodleian Library, 2018. Hardcover, 416 pages, $65. Reviewed by Alexi Sargeant The red jumps off the page. You’re in the middle of a letter from Father Christmas...
Why Make Men Pigs
Circe by Madeline Miller. Little, Brown and Company, 2018. Hardcover, 400 pages, $27. Reviewed by Colleen M. Curran Madeline Miller’s 2011 debut novel, Song of Achilles, presented a recasting of Homer’s Iliad that retold the familiar tale from the perspective of...
A Conflicted Idea of America
These Truths: A History of the United States by Jill Lepore. W. W. Norton, 2018. Hardcover, 960 pages, $40. Part One: The Idea (1492–1799) Reviewed by Craig Bruce Smith “The United States is founded on a set of ideas,” says eminent historian Jill Lepore in the opening...
What Hath Lepore Wrought
These Truths: A History of the United States by Jill Lepore. W. W. Norton, 2018. Hardcover, 960 pages, $40. Part Two, The People (1800–1865) Reviewed by Daniel N. Gullotta Sweeping histories of the United States by a single scholar always worry me. This is not to say...
Citizenship and the Fitful History of the American Way
These Truths: A History of the United States by Jill Lepore. W. W. Norton, 2018. Hardcover, 960 pages, $40. Part Three, The State (1866–1945) Reviewed by Robert Greene II The rationale for Jill Lepore’s attempt at a new, fresh national narrative, These Truths, can be...
Recent Domestic History
These Truths: A History of the United States by Jill Lepore. W. W. Norton, 2018. Hardcover, 960 pages, $40. Part Four, The Machine (1946–2016) Reviewed by Lauren F. Turek Historian Jill Lepore opens her sweeping, synthetic overview of United States history with 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!