Undoing the Ties that Bind

Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960–2010 by Charles Murray. New York: Crown Forum, 2012, 416 pp., hardcover, $27. In America, it is currently difficult to define what it means to be an American. Not anecdotally, as in “what does it mean to you?” or “what...

Defending the Humane Tradition

The Humane Vision of Wendell Berry, edited by Mark T. Mitchell and Nathan Schlueter. ISI Books, 2011. Cloth, 336 pages, $30. Reviewed by Tobias J. Lanz Wendell Berry is one of America’s most ardent defenders of the humane tradition—one of the few viable alternatives...

Eliot Through His Letters

The Letters of T. S. Eliot, Vol. II: 1923–1925 (U.S. Edition) edited by Valerie Eliot and Hugh Haughton. Yale University Press, 2011. 878 pp. $45. Since the first volume of Eliot’s letters (1898–1922) appeared in 1988, scholars and enthusiasts waited impatiently for...

The Light Invisible

T. S. Eliot (Longman Critical Readers Series) edited and introduced by Harriet Davidson. Longman (London), 210 pp., $69.95 cloth, 1999. The current dominance of postmodern literary theory in the Academy may be illustrated by an experience of mine at the relatively...

Outposts of Culture

The Criterion: Cultural Politics and Periodical Networks in Inter-War Britain by Jason Harding. Oxford University Press (New York, New York) 250 pp., $55.00 cloth, 2002.In the final issueof the Criterion, which appeared in January 1939, T. S. Eliot wrote that...

The Substance of Nothing

The Agnostic Age: Law, Religion, and the Constitution, by Paul Horwitz. Oxford University Press, 2011. 352 pages. $65. Any attempt at fairness in evaluating The Agnostic Age: Law, Religion, and the Constitution must start by recognizing the light touch and good will...