On Education, a Liberal that Liberals Shun

by | Oct 2, 2011

The Making of Americans: Democracy and Our Schools by E. D. Hirsch, Jr. Yale University Press (New Haven, CT), 261 pp., $17 paper, 2009 Toward the end of this highly readable book, E. D. Hirsch makes a very telling observation about the overall responses to his...

A Child’s Imagination is a Terrible Thing to Waste

by | Sep 25, 2011

Ten Ways to Destroy the Imagination of Your Child by Anthony Esolen (ISI Books, November 2010), 320 pp., $26.95.“A good book is a dangerous thing. . . . It carries within it the possibility . . . of cracking open the shell of routine that prevents us from seeing the...

Love and Evil in Nazi Germany

by | Sep 11, 2011

In the Garden of Beasts by Eric Larsen (Crown, 2011). 464 pages, $26. In the Garden of Beasts features William E. Dodd, the American ambassador posted to Nazi Germany from 1933 through the end of 1937. Dodd, a 64-year-old University of Chicago history professor, was...
Directions Back to the Public Square

Directions Back to the Public Square

by | Aug 14, 2011

Exiting a Dead End Road: A GPS for Christians in Public Discourse edited by Gudrun and Martin Kugler (Vienna, Austria: Kairos Publishing, 2010), paper, 353 pp. (introduction and table of contents available here).Europe is in decline. Once the cradle of Western...

Forgotten Name, Enduring Legacy

by | Aug 7, 2011

Founding Federalist: The Life of Oliver Ellsworth by Michael C. Toth (Wilmington, DE: ISI Books, 2011). 240 pages, $25. When American schoolchildren study the Constitutional Convention, they typically learn a few names—Madison, Randolph, Patterson, Washington—and few...

What was the Enlightenment?

by | Jul 24, 2011

A Revolution of the Mind: Radical Enlightenment and the Intellectual Origins of Modern Democracy by Jonathan Israel (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010). Pages xiv, 276. “For what do we live,” Mr. Bennet asked his second daughter, having just read to her...