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...

It’s About the Music

Exploring U2: Is This Rock ’n’ Roll? by Scott Calhoun (ed.), Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2012, 276 pp., hardcover, $60. Music is better heard than described. So the Scott Calhoun-edited Exploring U2: Is This Rock ’n’ Roll? naturally suffers from handicaps in a way...

On the Matter of Authentic Conservatism and Political Faith

From Billy Graham to Sarah Palin: Evangelicals and the Betrayal of American Conservatism. By D. G. Hart. Eerdmans, 2011. 237 pages. $25. With this book and his earlier A Secular Faith, Daryl Hart has put his force of persuasion strongly behind the idea of a secular...

Contingent Conservatism

The New Politics: Liberal Conservatism or Same Old Tories? by Peter King, Policy Press (Bristol UK), 2011, 156pp, paper, $35. Peter King of De Montfort University is a Conservative-supporting academic who has advised the government on welfare reform. He is besides the...

The Empire Goes Overboard

Defiance of the Patriots: The Boston Tea Party and the Making of America by Benjamin L. Carp, New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010, Cloth, 328 pp, $30 Boston had had enough. After a merchant ship refused to return to England with its controversial tea cargo, John...

Political Correctness and the War Against Authority

Society Against Itself: Political Correctness and Organizational Self-Destruction by Howard S. Schwartz, Karnac Books, 2010. Paper, 240 pp. The congeries of ideological positions known as “political correctness” has long posed a threat to Western civilization. As an...