Patiently Learning to Belong

Port William Novels & Stories: The Civil War to World War II by Wendell Berry. Library of America, 2018. Hardcover, 1018 pages, $40. This January, the Library of America released its first volume of Wendell Berry’s writings, Port William Novels & Stories (The...

After Liberalism, Religion?

Holy Wars and Holy Alliance: The Return of Religion to the Global Political Stage by Manlio Graziano. Columbia University Press, 2017. Hardcover, 368 pages, $35.   The liberal world order that we have complacently enjoyed for the last twenty-five years is...

Everything We Knew Was Wrong

Before Church and State: A Study of Social Order in the Sacramental Kingdom of St. Louis IX by Andrew Willard Jones. Emmaus Academic, 2017. Hardcover, 510 pages, $40.   Before Church and State, from the historian’s perspective, is undoubtedly a seminal work:...

Public Relations Disaster

The White King: Charles I, Traitor, Murderer, Martyr by Leanda de Lisle. PublicAffairs, 2017. Hardcover, 464 pages, $30.What most of us know about the reign of Charles I we know by way of myth. From Alexandre Dumas’s The Three Musketeers we know of the warmongering...

The Beauty of Order

The Vision of the Soul: Truth, Goodness, and Beauty in the Western Tradition by James Matthew Wilson. The Catholic University of America Press, 2017. Paperback, 352 pages, $30. Despite hitting a few bumps, poet James Matthew Wilson’s The Vision of the Soul delivers a...

What Can We Learn from Ancient Sophistry?

Sophistry and Political Philosophy: Protagoras’ Challenge to Socrates by Robert C. Bartlett. University of Chicago Press, 2016. Hardcover, 272 pages, $40. Reviewed by Ryan Shinkel One should be silent where one cannot speak, philosophy says, yet sophistry somehow...