Musket Before the Ax: Howells and Ohio

Musket Before the Ax: Howells and Ohio

Stories of Ohio by William Dean Howells. Belt Publishing, 2019. Paperback, 256 pages, $14.95. Reviewed by Jacob A. Bruggeman The year 1860 was a predictably good one for William Dean Howells, an up-and-coming man of letters from Ohio. In the four years prior, Howells...
Christ in the Outback

Christ in the Outback

God Is Good for You: A Defence of Christianity in Troubled Times by Greg Sheridan. Allen & Unwin, 2018. Paperback, 358 pages, $20. Reviewed by Karl Schmude Greg Sheridan is one of Australia’s leading journalists and media commentators. As the long-time Foreign...
Federalism Against the Slave Power

Federalism Against the Slave Power

American Abolitionism: Its Direct Political Impact from Colonial Times into Reconstruction by Stanley Harrold. University of Virginia Press, 2019. Hardcover. 296 pages. $39.50. Reviewed by Carl Lawrence Paulus The New York Times Magazine recently commemorated the four...
Sacrificial Crisis

Sacrificial Crisis

Heroes of the Fourth Turning by Will Arbery, directed by Danya Taymore Playwrights Horizons (New York), September 13–November 17, 2019. Reviewed by Trevor C. Merrill Will Arbery has described his new play as a six-part fugue. Its subject—the kernel from which the rest...
Fortunate Naivety

Fortunate Naivety

Jean Vanier: Portrait of a Free Man by Anne-Sophie Constant. Plough, 2019. Paperback, 250 pages, $18. Reviewed by Matthew Loftus About a decade ago came a minor skirmish in the ongoing fight among evangelicals about our disposition towards the faith that goes back...
Longing for Home

Longing for Home

Nostalgia: Going Home in a Homeless World by Anthony Esolen. Regnery, 2018.Hardcover, 256 pages, $29. Reviewed by Henry George The declaration of political homelessness, feeling bereft of the consolation that being rooted in support for a political party can give, is...