A Very American Historian
C. Vann Woodward: America’s Historian By James C. Cobb. University of North Carolina Press, 2022. Hardcover, 504 pages, $37.50. Reviewed by John C. Chalberg. Should C. Vann Woodward be regarded as America’s historian? Given his career and this biography, a more...
Arguing the Unarguable Thing
Tearing Us Apart: How Abortion Harms Everything and Solves Nothing By Ryan T. Anderson and Alexandra DeSanctis. Regnery Publishing, 2022. Hardcover, 256 pages, $29.99. Reviewed by Nicole M. King. It is common practice for professors (or teaching assistants) of English...
Why We Need Beauty
A Philosophy of Beauty: Shaftesbury on Nature, Virtue, and Art By Michael B. Gill. Princeton University Press, 2022. Hardcover, 248 pages, $39.95. Reviewed by Lee Trepanier. Now neglected in the Western canon, Shaftesbury’s Characteristicks of Men, Manners, Opinions,...
What Makes a Classic?
Wit’s Treasury: Renaissance England and the Classics By Stephen Orgel. University of Pennsylvania Press, 2021. Hardcover, 216 pages, $39.95. Reviewed by John Tuttle. What is a classic? It’s a provocative question for the literary-bent mind. Just what...
Where Is Home?
A Song to Keep: A Kinship of Poems and Drawings By Olivia Findlay and Domenica de Ferranti. Scotland Street Press, 2021. Hardcover, 112 pages, $35. Reviewed by Ashlee Cowles. One of the most prominent and compelling themes in literature, including poetry, is the...
Kirk saw poetry, fiction, tradition, and restraint as essential to understanding America and preserving its character. In his review of "On America," @cjscalia explores Kirk’s vision of the founding, statesmanship, literature, and the enduring ideas that have shaped the republic.