The Superhero and the City

The Superhero and the City

Superhero Ethics: 10 Comic Book Heroes; 10 Ways to Save the World; Which One Do We Need Most Now? by Travis Smith. Templeton Press, 2018. Hardcover, 190 pages, $25. Reviewed by Ryan Shinkel Classical art imitated life to cultivate it. In Greek sculpture, great souls...
Effing the Ineffable

Effing the Ineffable

Music as an Art by Roger Scruton. Bloomsbury Continuum, 2018. Hardcover, 272 pages, $32. Reviewed by Robert Grant Price In Music as an Art, the late Roger Scruton seeks to defend Western high culture by defending its summit, classical music. It was a defense Scruton...
Making a Home Among Monsters and Martians

Making a Home Among Monsters and Martians

Midwestern Strange: Hunting Monsters, Martians, and the Weird in Flyover Country by B. J. Hollars. University of Nebraska Press, 2019. Paperback, 208 pages, $20. Reviewed by Jacob A. Bruggeman It was around the time of my ninth birthday that I realized the Loch...
Metaphysics for a Broken Western World

Metaphysics for a Broken Western World

The Discovery of Being and Thomas Aquinas: Philosophical and Theological Perspectives Edited by Christopher M. Cullen, SJ and Franklin T. Harkins. Catholic University of America Press, 2019. Hardcover, 320 pages, $75. Reviewed by Gerard T. Mundy The Western world...
Faith and Works and the Novel

Faith and Works and the Novel

The Decline of the Novel by Joseph Bottum. St. Augustine’s Press, 2019. Hardcover, 153 pages, $25. Reviewed by Trevor C. Merrill In this wide-ranging essay, Joseph Bottum has managed to turn a stale topic—the death of the novel—into fresh cultural criticism, arguing...
Genuine Realism in a Multipolar World

Genuine Realism in a Multipolar World

A Common Human Ground: Universality and Particularity in a Multicultural World by Claes G. Ryn. University of Missouri Press, 2019. Paperback, 178 pages, $21.95. Reviewed by Eric Adler With the problems facing international relations today, political leaders and...