Can Bureaucrats Be Virtuous?
When the State Meets the Street: Public Service and Moral Agency by Bernardo Zacka. Belknap Press, 2017. Hardcover, 320 pages, $35. Reviewed by John Ehrett It’s easy to view the modern administrative state as a faceless regulatory apparatus, or a lumbering...
A Rewarding Experience Awaits
Rendez-vous with Art by Philippe de Montebello and Martin Gayford. Thames & Hudson, 2014. Hardcover, 248 pages, $35. Reviewed by Stephen Schmalhofer While his cause lingers, if Dante were to be canonized, museum patrons will have a patron saint. As tourists...
Haiti’s Role in the American Civil War
The Slaveholding Crisis: Fear of Insurrection and the Coming of the Civil War by Carl Lawrence Paulus. LSU Press, 2017. Hardcover, 328 pages, $49. Reviewed by Kyle Sammin In the teaching of American history, the United States is often portrayed as going it alone....
Persuasion in the Age of Twitter
How to Win an Argument: An Ancient Guide to the Art of Persuasion by Marcus Tullius Cicero, translated and edited by James M. May. Princeton University Press, 2016. Hardcover, 288 pages, $17. Reviewed by David G. Bonagura, Jr. It is no secret that American public...
Two Cheers for Ultramontanism
Vatican I: The Council and the Making of the Ultramontane Church by John W. O’Malley. Harvard University Press, 2018. Hardcover, 295 pages, $25. Reviewed by Tyler Dobbs After many long centuries, the papacy had finally met its end. No, we are not talking about the...
Kirk saw poetry, fiction, tradition, and restraint as essential to understanding America and preserving its character. In his review of "On America," @cjscalia explores Kirk’s vision of the founding, statesmanship, literature, and the enduring ideas that have shaped the republic.