Put In This World to Do Battle
Imaginative Conservatism: The Letters of Russell Kirk edited by James E. Person Jr. University of Kentucky Press, 2018. Hardcover, 432 pages, $40. Nicholas Kennicott Letters are often an intimate look into the details of a person’s life and musings, so whenever the...
Philanthropy Is Not Charity
The Philanthropic Revolution: An Alternative History of American Charity by Jeremy Beer. University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015. Hardcover, 124 pages, $20. In The Philanthropic Revolution, Jeremy Beer succeeds in his two-pronged effort to delineate charity from...
Cracking Jokes at the Crack of Doom
Lincoln’s Sense of Humor by Richard Carwardine. Southern Illinois University Press, 2017. Hardcover, 184 pages, $24.95. In the lobby of the Ford’s Theatre Center for Education and Leadership in Washington, D.C. stands a three-and-a-half-story tower of Lincoln...
The Cycles of Networked History?
The Square and the Tower: Networks and Power, from the Freemasons to Facebook by Niall Ferguson. Penguin Press, 2018. Hardcover, 592 pages, $30. Matthew M. Robare Niall Ferguson’s The Square and the Tower is a short, sometimes too short, book that provides an...
From Hope to Hope: On the Mind of Man
James V. Schall, S. J. The second essay of Samuel Johnson’s entries in The Rambler was published on Saturday, March 24, 1750. The essay begins with what must be called a general experience of all mankind, thus including one’s own self-knowledge: “The mind of man is...
The Questions Behind Populism
Vox Populi: The Perils and Promises of Populism edited by Roger Kimball. Encounter Books, 2017. Hardcover, 216 pages, $24. MARLO SAFI Over the course of the 2016 Presidential election, Americans became very familiar with the resurgence of an old “ism”: populism....
Which Philosophers Lived Their Thought?
Lives of the Eminent Philosophers by Diogenes Laertius, translated by Pamela Mensch, edited by James Miller. Oxford University Press, 2018. Hardcover, 720 pages, $45. Frank Freeman When Nietzsche was still a classical philologist, not the Hyperborean philosopher he...
The Dismissed in Revolt
The Great Revolt: Inside the Populist Coalition Reshaping American Politics by Salena Zito and Brad Todd. Crown Forum, 2018. Hardcover, 309 pages, $28. Addison Del Mastro “We as a country cannot just let our fellow Americans be left behind, dismissed because someone...
A Place on the Walls
Thoughts on Home Décor SAM BURNHAM How a home is decorated communicates the essence of the people living there. Even the briefest of glances can give a visitor insight into the personalities, religion, family ties, perhaps even the political inclinations of the...
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!