In the Ruins, Hope

The Benedict Option: A Strategy for Christians in a Post-Christian Nation by Rod Dreher. Sentinel, 2017. Hardcover, 272 pages, $25.Rod Dreher has been calling for Christians to heal themselves, their churches, and their communities, for most of his adult life. One...

Elites and the Future of France

Le crépuscule de la France d’en haut by Christophe Guilluy. Flammarion, 2016. Paper, 253 pages, $45. Reviewed by Eamon Moynihan The year 2017 is the two hundredth anniversary of the publication of the classic work by British financier David Ricardo, On the Principles...

‘It Was the End of Solo Singing’

The Cypresses Believe in God by José María Gironella. Ignatius, [1953] 2005. Paper, 900 pages.When Eric Hobsbawm suggested that the period 1914–1991 could be called “the short twentieth century,” he not only defined an era but separated it from our own. Few conflicts...

Thirteen Ways of Looking at Wallace Stevens

The Whole Harmonium: The Life of Wallace Stevens by Paul Mariani Simon & Schuster, 2016. Hardcover, 483 pages, $30. When Wallace Stevens was seventy-two, he received the Robert Frost Gold Medal from the Poetry Society of America. In his remarks, he gave an ethical...

American Imperialism and Its Discontents

The True Flag: Theodore Roosevelt, Mark Twain, and the Birth of the American Empire by Stephen Kinzer. Henry Holt, 2017. Hardcover, 306 pages, $28. As the subtitle suggests, this is a book about personality and politics, a group biography with a large cast, including...

A Fine Closet of Curiosities

In Search of Sir Thomas Browne: The Life and Afterlife of the Seventeenth Century’s Most Inquiring Mind by Hugh Aldersey-Williams. Norton, 2015. Hardcover, 352 pages, $27.Reading Sir Thomas Browne’s unique prose reminds me of walking through the Pitt Rivers Museum in...