A Review of Tolkien's Modern Reading
Holly Ordway destroys the myth of Tolkien as an anti-modern crank.
Book Reviews
Fresh commentary on some of the most important books in law, politics, and culture.
A Review of Supreme Disorder
Judicial restraint is not responsible for the disorder of our Supreme Court confirmation process.
A Review of The Enlightenment
As modern history has proven over and over again, progress occurs in an environment of ordered liberty; authoritarian societies are stagnant societies.
A Review of The Unbroken Thread
Ahmari's most fundamental concerns are not really focused on tradition—they are about pietas.
Past Reviews
Book Review
It is always difficult to carry the torch of tradition, and some ages are more trying than others.
A Review of Politics and the Earthly City in Augustine's City of God
Augustine is the opposite of the milquetoast versions of Christianity that are so much with us today. To a searching mind, he joined a fighting spirit.
A Review of Strategic Humanism: Lessons on Leadership from the Ancient Greeks
Our sense of ourselves as human beings changes. A premise of Strategic Humanism is that since Bacon and Descartes it has changed for the worse.
A Review of The United States Army and the Making of America
Wooster’s book is an examination of the fundamental debates regarding the role of the military in American society.
A Review of The Decline of Nations
In his indictment of America's national decline, Johnston's belief that America has the wherewithal to restore itself shines through.
A Review of The Decline of Nations
Joseph Johnston’s study joins a long line of “decline and fall” studies attempting to glean lessons from history to avoid repeating it.
A Review of The Autobiography of Calvin Coolidge
In Calvin Coolidge the nation had an uncommonly perceptive, and distinctively American, mind in the White House.
A Review of The Religion Clauses
American religious freedom has respected the rights of citizens to live integrated lives and to carry their commitments with them in civil society.
A Review of Duty and Destiny
Churchill's soul melded together magnanimity and moderation, heroic greatness with solicitude for political liberty.
A Review of Mussolini's War
Unlike Salazar, the studious technocrat, and Franco, the experienced general, Mussolini knew little of military matters.
A Review of Between Two Millstones: Exile in America 1972-1998
Millstones grind grain into flour, and Solzhenitsyn’s focus is on how the two great political systems of the mid-20th century grind human souls into dust.
A Review of Piranesi
Pandemic life draws a number of parallels with that of the narrator in Susanna Clarke’s latest novel, Piranesi.
A Review of The Light Ages
Falk reconstructs the relationships of medieval astronomy to liturgy, agriculture, mathematics, medicine, alchemy, weather forecasting, etc.
A Review of A Holy Baptism of Fire and Blood
Southerners and Northerners both viewed the Civil War as a holy cause and turned to scripture for their examples.