The University Bookman

Help us reach our $20k goal this “Kirktober”

“The past generation of American life, on Hunter’s account, has been one of intensifying ‘exhaustion’ and distrust, as the sources of pluralism have multiplied, and the endlessly ‘worked-through’ soil of the hybrid-Enlightenment has come to seem dry and depleted, no longer able to provide plausible accounts of human nature and the meaning of history that a majority of Americans can sign onto.”

“This might have been a highly political book detailing the evolution of a conventional Cold War liberal into the conservative that he is regarded as being (even if he doesn’t label himself as such in these pages). It might have been, but it isn’t. No, this memoir was written simply because Epstein sees his life as ’emblematic of the times’ and secondly because he sees himself as having acquired the literary skill necessary to ‘recount that life well.'”