Transmitting Western Civilization Through Education
On Being Civilized: A Few Lines Amid the Breakage By Tracy Lee Simmons. Memoria College Press, 2023. Paperback, 281 pages, $15.45. Reviewed by Darrell Falconburg. “What is civilization?” When confronted with what appears to be civilizational disintegration, many...
The Divine Inspiration of Handel’s Messiah
Every Valley: The Desperate Lives and Troubled Times That Made Handel’s Messiah By Charles King. Doubleday, 2024. Hardcover, 352 pages, $32.00. Reviewed by Rev. Dr. Karl C. Schaffenburg. Joyeuses Fêtes! as a seasonal greeting is no more silly than “Happy Holidays!”,...
Buckley at 100: At Sea with William F. Buckley Jr.
Airborne: A Sentimental Journey (1976) Atlantic High: A Celebration (1982) Racing Through Paradise: A Pacific Passage (1987) WindFall: The End of the Affair (1992) Reviewed by Bill Meehan. William F. Buckley Jr., a friend of Russell Kirk, circulated The University...
Roadmap for Downsizing the Administrative State
American Leviathan: The Birth of the Administrative State and Progressive Authoritarianism By Ned Ryun. Encounter Books, 2024. Paperback, 176 pages, $19.99. Reviewed by Jeffrey Folks. In American Leviathan, Ned Ryun offers a cogent overview of the origins,...
To Awaken the Uneasy Sleeper: New Vistas on Russell Kirk’s Fiction
The Wizard of Mecosta: Russell Kirk, Gothic Fiction, and the Moral Imagination By Camilo Peralta. Vernon Press, 2024. Hardcover, 222 pages, $78.00. Reviewed by James E. Person Jr. The late Russell Kirk (1918-1994) was one of the wisest yet humblest of men one could...
Halting the Assembly Line Life
Mothers, Children, and the Body Politic: Ancient Christianity and the Recovery of Human Dignity By Nadya Williams. IVP Academic, 2024. Paperback, 240 pages, $26. Reviewed by Sarah Reardon. On the walls of the birth center sit posters about birth control. In the office...
Looking at U.S. Trade Policy Through a Historical Lens
Clashing Over Commerce: A History of U.S. Trade Policy By Douglas A. Irwin. University of Chicago Press, 2017. Hardcover, 832 pages, $38. Reviewed by Frank Filocomo. The Trump years have thrust trade policy back into the national conversation for the first time since...
The Mystery of Imitation
All Desire is a Desire for Being By René Girard, Edited and Introduced by Cynthia L. Haven. Penguin Classics, 2024. Paperback, 336 pages, $18. Reviewed by Justin D. Garrison. In All Desire is a Desire for Being, Cynthia L. Haven has produced the first edited volume of...
An Italian Apologia for the American Electoral System
Come si USA. Guida (e curiosità) per l’elezione del presidente americano By Marco Respinti. D’Ettoris editore, 2024. Paperback, 100 pages, 12,40€. Reviewed by Carolina Riva Posse. Emilio Komar was a Slovenian-Argentinian philosopher, an immigrant, and an heir...
A Christmas Carol is great literature. Ghosts are a must for Christmas.