A Half Century of Conservative Criticism
The Failure of American Conservatism and the Road Not Taken By Claes G. Ryn. Republic Book Publishers, 2023. Hardcover, 468 pages, $24.95. Reviewed by John Grove. Since at least 2016, conservatism has been undergoing a bit of an intellectual identity crisis. Perhaps...
Literary Virtue and Vice
Deep Reading: Practices to Subvert the Vices of Our Distracted, Hostile, and Consumeristic Age By Rachel B. Griffis, Julie Ooms, and Rachel M. De Smith Roberts. Baker Academic, 2024. Paperback, 240 pages, $24.99. Reviewed by Sarah Reardon. I sat in disbelief in front...
JP O’Malley Interviews Author Maurice Samuels
Alfred Dreyfus The Man at the Center of the Affair By Maurice Samuels. Yale University Press, 2024. Paperback, 224 pages, $20. Maurice Samuels published Alfred Dreyfus: The Man at the Center of the Affair early this year. The University Bookman contributor JP O’Malley...
The Left Wing Patriot
The Controversialist: Arguments with Everyone, Left Right and Center By Martin Peretz. Wicked Son, 2023. Hardcover, 352 pages, $28.00. Reviewed by Chuck Chalberg. If it can be said that a book occasionally arrives at just the right moment, Martin Peretz’s...
Will You Also Go Away?
True Confessions: Voices of Faith from a Life in the Church By Francis X. Maier. Ignatius Press, 2024. Hardcover, 284 pages, $24.95. Reviewed by Thomas Griffin. Following the title page of Francis X. Maier’s True Confessions: Voices of Faith from a Life in the Church...
Sailing East
Adventurers: The Improbable Rise of the East India Company, 1550-1650 By David Howarth. Yale University Press, 2023. Hardcover, 480 pages, $35.00. Reviewed by Jesse Russell. One of the most popular phrases among Marxists during the long reign of Barack H. Obama was...
The Republic and the American Right
War on the American Republic: How Liberalism Became Despotism By Kevin Slack. Encounter Books, 2023. Hardcover, 456 pages, $34.99. Reviewed by Mark G. Brennan. This just in: Rural Americans are fleeing the Democratic Party! In case you missed “Why Democrats Are Losing...
Evil and Good in Cormac McCarthy
The Achievement of Cormac McCarthy By Vereen M. Bell. Louisiana State University Press, 1988/2023. Paperback, 160 pages, $24.99. Reviewed by Michael Yost. “I spoke with bitterness about my life and I said that I would take my own part against the slander of oblivion...
Under the Light of the Same Communion Candle: From Russell Kirk to James Matthew Wilson
T. S. Eliot: Culture and Anarchy By James Matthew Wilson. Wiseblood Books, 2024. Paperback, 72 pages, $5. Reviewed by Daniel James Sundahl. Matthew Arnold’s thesis in The Function of Criticism at the Present Time reads much like a response by Arnold to suggestions...
A Christmas Carol is great literature. Ghosts are a must for Christmas.