A Partial Introduction to Black Conservatism

Black Conservatism: Essays in Intellectual and Political History edited by Peter Eisenstadt. Routledge, 2015. Paperback, 328 pages, $55. Black Conservatism, a collection edited by Peter Eisenstadt, is an introduction to the lives of lesser-known figures who can be...

Terry Castle: The Anti-Paglia

Helen Andrews Camille Paglia burst onto the scene with Sexual Personae like Marlene Dietrich appearing at the top of the staircase. Who was this woman with the gloriously severe haircut who could put a 700-page book of literary criticism onto the bestseller lists? The...

Reconsidering Orwell’s Essays

A Collection of Essays by George Orwell. Doubleday, 1952. [Harcourt, 1970] Reviewed by John P. Rossi George Orwell was the greatest essayist of the twentieth century. Sixty years ago, at the height of his fame as the author of Animal Farm, Orwell published a...

For a Thousand Memes to Sing

Absence of Mind: The Dispelling of Inwardness from the Modern Myth of the Self by Marilynne Robinson. Yale University Press, 2010. 176 pages, $24.Marilynne Robinson is America’s leading literary Calvinist. This title may give her short shrift, for she is also a...

Defending the Humane Tradition

The Humane Vision of Wendell Berry, edited by Mark T. Mitchell and Nathan Schlueter. ISI Books, 2011. Cloth, 336 pages, $30. Reviewed by Tobias J. Lanz Wendell Berry is one of America’s most ardent defenders of the humane tradition—one of the few viable alternatives...