Churchill as Communicator

Churchill as Communicator

Churchill: Walking with Destiny by Andrew Roberts. Viking, 2018. Hardcover, 1152 pages, $40. Reviewed by Joseph Bottum and Benjamin F. Jones There are now more than a thousand biographies of Winston Churchill. Or so declares the publicity material accompanying Andrew...
Tribe, Nation, Empire

Tribe, Nation, Empire

The Virtue of Nationalism by Yoram Hazony. Basic Books, 2018. Hardcover, 285 pages, $30. Reviewed by Glenn A. Moots In a lamentable time when Ben Shapiro and Tucker Carlson are considered prominent conservatives, Yoram Hazony may be the most important conservative you...
Animating Our Souls

Animating Our Souls

Miyazakiworld: A Life in Art by Susan Napier. Yale University Press, 2018. Hardcover, 344 pages, $30. Reviewed by Titus Techera We owe Susan Napier and the Yale University Press a debt of gratitude for her efforts in Miyazakiworld, a book that shows everything...
Reclaiming a Place for Conversation

Reclaiming a Place for Conversation

Them: Why We Hate Each Other—And How to Heal by Ben Sasse St. Martin’s Press, 2018. Hardcover, 288 pages, $29. Reviewed by Anthony M. Barr Conservatives in twenty-first century America often fear an assortment of boogeymen that may or may not actually exist. Whether...
On the Endlessness of the World Story

On the Endlessness of the World Story

By James V. Schall, S. J. In The Tolkien Reader is found his famous essay “On Fairy-Stories.” At the end of the essay, we find some explanatory “Notes” listed according to letters—A, B, C, and so on. The Note listed as “H” is the one that interests me here. Note “H”...
Lingis Among the Nightingales

Lingis Among the Nightingales

Irrevocable: A Philosophy of Mortality by Alphonso Lingis University of Chicago Press, 2018. Paperback, 240 pages, $30. Reviewed by Michael Shindler Little stirs people to write as much as death’s approach. Some write wills and memoirs, others write verse and...
An Unflinching Theological Aesthetic

An Unflinching Theological Aesthetic

The Hanging God By James Matthew Wilson. Angelico Press, 2018. Paperback, 85 pages, $14.95 Reviewed by Steven Knepper Many of the poems in James Matthew Wilson’s The Hanging God are well-executed narratives. There are narratives, for instance, about an impoverished...
A Hope Beyond Our Sight

A Hope Beyond Our Sight

The Fall of Gondolin by J. R. R. Tolkien, edited by Christopher Tolkien. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2018. Hardcover, 304 pages, $30. Reviewed by Ben Reinhard The Fall of Gondolin is, appropriately enough, the story of endings: the end of the mythical kingdom, to be...
For Liberty or Tyranny?

For Liberty or Tyranny?

John Marshall: The Man Who Made the Supreme Court by Richard Brookhiser. Basic Books, 2018. Hardcover, 324 pages, $30. Reviewed by Addison Del Mastro Historian and biographer Richard Brookhiser offers here a moderately short, easy to read, and quite in-depth review of...
Best of Bacevich

Best of Bacevich

Twilight of the American Century By Andrew J. Bacevich. University of Notre Dame Press, 2018. Paper, 469 pages, $25. Reviewed by Mark G. Brennan I read everything written by Andrew Bacevich with a maniacal obsession. His work provides a glimmer of hope for a return to...