Communism: Product of the Fallen West
Communism and the Conscience of the West By Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen. Cluny Media, 2021. Paperback, 227 pages, $22.95. Reviewed by Joseph Tuttle. Written only a few years following World War II, Communism and the Conscience of the West surveys the philosophy of...
Institutionally Preaching the Gospel: The Right Words Are Necessary
Religious Freedom After the Sexual Revolution by Helen M. Alvaré. The Catholic University of America Press, 2022. Paperback, 256 pages, $24.95. Reviewed by Jennie Bradley Lichter. The core conviction and the raison d’être of Helen Alvaré’s excellent book is that...
Choosing a Currency
Better Money: Gold, Fiat, or Bitcoin? by Lawrence H. White. Cambridge University Press, 2023. Paperback, 185 pages, $29.99. Reviewed by David Weinberger. If the last couple years have taught us anything about inflation, it is that the value of our money can rapidly...
“To Help Man Endure by Lifting His Heart”: Earl Hamner at 100
By James E. Person Jr. “My grandfather used to say that nobody owns a mountain, but getting born and living and dying in its shadow, we loved Waltons’ Mountain and felt it was ours.” Spoken in the gentle, Southern/Scotch-Irish accent typical of rural Virginia, those...
The Women of the Bible Speak Again
The Mothers and Daughters of the Bible Speak: Lessons on Faith from Nine Biblical Families By Shannon Bream. Broadside Books, 2022. Hardcover, 288 pages, $26.99. Reviewed by Annmarie McLaughlin. In The Mothers and Daughters of the Bible Speak: Lessons on Faith from...
Inside the Split Mind of George Kennan
Kennan: A Life Between Worlds By Frank Costigliola. Princeton University Press, 2023. Hardcover, 648 pages, $39.95. Reviewed by John C. Chalberg. Biographies of George Frost Kennan can have tales of their own. Or so concludes Kennan’s most recent biographer,...
Real Natural Law
Mere Natural Law: Originalism and the Anchoring Truths of the Constitution By Hadley Arkes. Regnery Gateway, 2023. Hardcover, 352 pages, $32.99. Reviewed by William H. Rooney. Hadley Arkes is a prophet in a materialist and positivist age, and he prophesies at length...
Knights On a Darkling Plain
Diogenes Unveiled: A Paul Mankowski Collection Edited by Philip E. Lawler. Ignatius Press, 2022. Paperback, 294 pages, $19.95. Christendom Lost and Found: Meditations for a Post Post-Christian Era By Father Robert McTeigue, S.J. Ignatius Press, 2022. Paperback, 125...
Mysteries Require Odes, Not Emails
The Saint Mary’s Book of Christian Verse Chosen and Introduced by Edward Short. Foreword by Dana Gioia. Gracewing, 2022. Paperback, 412 pages, $25. Reviewed by David G. Bonagura, Jr. In a technocratic and materialist age, an individual or institution’s attitude toward...
There are metaphorical hills on which I would be willing to die. The Oxford comma is one of them.
So easy to forget that the best way to educate yourself is to read great works of literature and philosophy, then talk about them. Bring back the salon!