Rescuing the Heroic Narrative
The Fiery Angel: Art, Culture, Sex, Politics, and the Struggle for the Soul of the West by Michael Walsh. Encounter Books, 2018. Paperback, 231 pages, $26. Reviewed by Elizabeth Bittner The image of the fiery angel, as employed by Michael Walsh in his latest work, is...
When Elites Were Elites
The Republic of Letters by Marc Fumaroli. Yale University Press, 2018. Hardcover, 382 pages, $30. Reviewed by Addison Del Mastro The Republic of Letters is one of those fascinating history books that introduces an almost completely new element of analysis into already...
The Bloody (Congressional) Road to Disunion
The Field of Blood: Violence in Congress and the Road to Civil War By Joanne B. Freeman. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2018. Hardcover, 480 pages, $28. Reviewed by John Bicknell One could make the case that Yale professor Joanne Freeman is obsessed with people getting...
Confessions of a Jet-Set Conservative
The Corrosion of Conservatism: Why I Left the Right by Max Boot. Liveright, 2018. Hardcover, 288 pages, $25. Reviewed by Ben Sixsmith Max Boot, like newspaper columnist Jennifer Rubin, once claimed to be a conservative critic of President Donald Trump, but has become...
Hayek and the Liberty of Knowledge
F. A. Hayek: Economics, Political Economy, and Social Philosophy by Peter J. Boettke. Palgrave Macmillan, 2018. Hardcover, 323 pages, $120. Reviewed by Erik W. Matson In his 1960 book The Constitution of Liberty, F. A. Hayek (1899–1992) said, If old truths...
On Happiness as Harmony
Pedro Blas González Of the many ways that we can exist as persons, happiness directs our glance inward, toward the essence of our individual being. This is the discovery of personhood as interiority. The ultimate form of happiness—joy—signals our participation in...
Surviving the Robot-Barons
The Human Advantage: The Future of American Work in an Age of Smart Machines by Jay W. Richards. Crown Forum, 2018. Hardcover, 209 pages, $23. Reviewed by Jacob Bruggeman College graduates, young professionals, and people making mid-career transitions to other...
Poetry, Oblivion, and God
He Held Radical Light: The Art of Faith, the Faith of Art by Christian Wiman. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2018. Hardcover, 128 pages, $23. Reviewed by Micah Mattix Fewer than twenty pages into Christian Wiman’s slim and personal He Held Radical Light, he is sitting in...
A Compelling and Contradictory Prophet
Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom by David W. Blight. Simon and Schuster, 2018. Hardcover, 888 pages, $37.50. Reviewed by Annelisa J. Purdie Frederick Douglass (1818–1895) is a remarkable and compelling figure in American history. His portraits are among the most...
My summer reading: @NBlakeEPPC's Victims of the Revolution, @AmericanGwyn's The Cannibal Owl (read @danielcowper's review https://bit.ly/3G0EOIb), Kent Haruf's Plainsong, and more.
https://kirkcenter.org/reviews/editors-summer-reading-2/
What will @lsheahan, @DavidGBonaguraJ, Isabel Dobbs and @darrellfalconbu of @ubookman be reading this summer? Check out the post below.