Home, Sour Home
Western Self-Contempt: Oikophobia in the Decline of Civilizations By Benedict Beckeld. Northern Illinois University Press, 2022 Hardcover, 264 pages, $32.95. Reviewed by Daniel Fischer. Americans’ relationship with their country resembles a fraying marriage....
Lincoln and the Democratic Cause
Our Ancient Faith: Lincoln, Democracy, and the American Experiment By Allen C. Guelzo. Knopf, 2024. Hardcover, 272 pages, $30. Reviewed by Daniel James Sundahl. On the southern border of my college’s campus is a statue of a Union soldier. It’s the oldest such monument...
JP O’Malley Interviews Author Frank Tallis
Mortal Secrets: Freud, Vienna, and the Discovery of the Modern Mind By Frank Tallis. St. Martin’s Press, 2024. Hardcover, 496 pages, $31. Frank Tallis published Mortal Secrets: Freud, Vienna, and the Discovery of the Modern Mind early in 2024. The University Bookman...
Finding the Historical Vergil
Vergil: The Poet’s Life By Sarah Ruden. Yale University Press, 2023. Hardcover, 200 pages, $26. Reviewed by Paul Krause. Vergil is the greatest Roman poet. We know him as the poet of the Aeneid, the Eclogues, and the Georgics. Vergil is also Dante’s guide through hell...
Fighting for Free Speech and Academic Freedom
You Can’t Teach That!: The Battle over University Classrooms By Keith E. Whittington. Polity, 2024. Paperback, 176 pages, $19.95. Reviewed by Donald Downs. Keith Whittington has long been a leading prolific scholar of constitutional law and American...
America First—Or Last?
America Last: The Right’s Century-Long Romance with Foreign Dictators By Jacob Heilbrunn. Liveright, 2024. Hardcover, 264 pages, $28.99. Reviewed by Chuck Chalberg. Paul Hollander, wherever he is, need not worry. The best book by far on an American romance with...
The Soul Always Takes Priority
Now and at the Hour of Our Death: Making Moral Decisions at the End of Life By Nikolas T. Nikas and Bruce W. Green. Ignatius, 2024. Paperback, 213 pages, $18.95. Reviewed by Robert Grant Price. While washing the dishes, I listened to a shock jock philosophize about...
Early Modern Queens
Young Queens: Three Renaissance Women and the Price of Power By Leah Redmond Chang. Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2023. Hardcover, 512 pages, $35.00. Reviewed by Jesse Russell. In the Anglophone world, there is one (and only one) Renaissance queen: Elizabeth Tudor....
The Waters of Ius and Freedom
Natural Law Republicanism: Cicero’s Liberal Legacy Michael C. Hawley. Oxford University Press, 2022. Hardcover, 264 pages, $97. Reviewed by Samuel Sprunk. In Natural Law Republicanism: Cicero’s Liberal Legacy, Michael Hawley joins one of the most intellectually...
A Christmas Carol is great literature. Ghosts are a must for Christmas.