Percy and the Persistence of Alienation
Walker Percy and the Politics of the Wayfarer by Brian A. Smith. Lexington Books, 2017. Hardcover, 195 pages, $91. Reviewed by Emina Melonic By nature, we are restless and distracted beings. Feeling empty, isolated, disconnected, and unhappy is nothing new. Even early...
When Democracy Came, It Came in a Flurry
The Coming of Democracy: Presidential Campaigning in the Age of Jackson By Mark R. Cheathem. Johns Hopkins University Press, 2018. Paperback, 248 pages, $25. Reviewed by John Bicknell “I have been charmed to see that a presidential election now produces scarcely any...
A Desire to Win Well
American Honor: The Creation of the Nation’s Ideals During the Revolutionary Era by Craig Bruce Smith. University of North Carolina Press, 2018. Hardcover, 384 pages, $35. Reviewed by Daniel N. Gullotta Recent historians have found little honorable about the American...
Your Political Opponent Might Be Human
The Monarchy of Fear: A Philosopher Looks at Our Political Crisis by Martha Nussbaum. Simon & Schuster, 2018. Hardcover, 249 pages, $17. Reviewed by Anthony M. Barr In the preface to her recent book The Monarchy of Fear, philosopher Martha Nussbaum observes that...
A Dreadful Joy Is Conjured
The Princess of All Lands by Russell Kirk. Arkham House, 1979. Hardcover, 238 pages. (Stories reprinted in Ancestral Shadows, ISI, 2004). Reviewed by Stephen Schmalhofer One unexpected benefit of moving from New York City to Connecticut is the recovery of October from...
A Most Hospitable Benedict Option
Building the Benedict Option: A Guide to Gathering Two or Three Together in His Name by Leah Libresco. Ignatius, 2018. Paperback, 163 pages, $17. Reviewed by Gracy M. Olmstead Nobody was meant to be a loner. In the Garden of Eden, God said that it was “not good for...
Hope When There’s Nowhere to Hide
A Quiet PLace Directed by John Krasinski. Paramount, 2018. Run time: 90 minutes. Reviewed by Ryan Shinkel Apocalypses are one way to get religious at the box office. End times unveil moral character as wheat from chaff: the hopeful sacrifice for a better future while...
The First Church of Cinema
By Jacob Bruggeman The human soul is hungry for beauty; we seek it everywhere—in landscape, music, art, clothes, furniture, gardening, companionship, love, religion, and in ourselves. No one would desire not to be beautiful. When we experience the beautiful, there is...
The Presence of the Counterkingdom
The Year of Our Lord 1943: Christian Humanism in an Age of Crisis by Alan Jacobs. Oxford University Press, 2018. Cloth, 280 pages, $30. Reviewed by Adam Schwartz John Henry Newman once dubbed the Christian Church a “counter-kingdom.” As the historical embodiment of...
Person Means Relation attempts “to find a more adequate way of speaking [about the person] that saves us from defaulting to the language of things...Someone” Walsh teaches "Is utterly different from something.” - @pricerobertg https://buff.ly/2367Eag @ubookman