Enlightening the Masses
The Enlightenment That Failed: Ideas, Revolution, and Democratic Defeat, 1748–1830 by Jonathan I. Israel. Oxford University Press, 2020. Hardcover, 942 pages, $45. Reviewed by Luke Nicastro To commemorate the second anniversary of the Bastille’s seizure, in July of...
Fukuyama’s Lopsided Identity
Identity: The Demand for Dignity and the Politics of Resentment By Francis Fukuyama. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2018. Hardcover, 240 pages, $26. Reviewed by Emina Melonic The current discussions of “identity” today are overwhelmingly focused on identity politics as...
Machine Future
Blade Runner Directed by Ridley Scott. Warner Bros. 1982. Reviewed by Titus Techera The year 2019 is the setting of the movie Blade Runner, and the year of the death of Rutger Hauer, who played its antagonist Roy Batty, offering the noblest vision of mortality in...
A Nudge toward Freedom?
On Freedom by Cass R. Sunstein Princeton University Press, 2019. Hardcover, 136 pages, $12.95 Reviewed by Daniel James Sundahl After a two-day symposium on “Freedom and Western Civilization” sponsored by Hillsdale College, awaiting me at home was Professor Cass R....
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!