The Enlightenment’s Critics

The Enlightenment’s Critics

Critics of Enlightenment Rationalism edited by Gene Callahan and Kenneth B. McIntyre. Palgrave Macmillan, 2020. Hardcover, 313 pages, $110. Reviewed by David Coates Surveying the French Revolution, Edmund Burke presented an apparent paradox: “The pretended rights of...
The Humaneness of the Historical Mind

The Humaneness of the Historical Mind

The Historical Mind: Humanistic Renewal in a Post-Constitutional Age edited by Justin D. Garrison and Ryan R. Holston SUNY Press, 2020. Hardcover, 320 pages, $95. Reviewed by Luke C. Sheahan The historical mind is not without its controversy. And for good reason. It...
The Surprise of Order

The Surprise of Order

Beauty: What It Is and Why It Matters by John-Mark L. Miravalle. Sophia Institute Press, 2019. Paperback, 176 pages, $15. Reviewed by John Tuttle A plate garnished and well seasoned, a garden bed of blooming flora, the yawning archways of a grand cathedral, and the...
Great Power Competition Is Like a Bad Designer Drug

Great Power Competition Is Like a Bad Designer Drug

We Built Reality: How Social Science Infiltrated Culture, Politics, and Power by Jason Blakely. Oxford University Press, 2020. Paperback, 184 pages, $28. Reviewed by Anthony M. Barr It is perhaps the most infamous quotation from the George W. Bush years. Karl Rove has...
What Makes a Life

What Makes a Life

The Index of Self-Destructive Acts: A Novel by Christopher Beha. Tin House Books, 2020. Hardcover, 528 pages, $28. Reviewed by Jessica Hooten Wilson This is a story that begins with the end of the world. As a young man named Sam Waxworth arrives from “the provinces”...