A Review of Property and the Pursuit of Happiness
Like the progressives with whom he disagrees, Erler prioritizes economic well-being as the foundation for happiness.
Book Reviews
Fresh commentary on some of the most important books in law, politics, and culture.
A Review of Lessons from Walden
Taylor seeks to elevate the political ramifications of Thoreau’s appeal to moral conscience as the very preconditions for a just, equitable political life.
A Review of Speaker Jim Wright
Wright undermined the very basis of his local popularity—the decentralized nature of the House—by supporting reforms that gave power to the party leaders.
A Review of Good Things Out of Nazareth
O'Connor's correspondence is a goldmine of piercing insight and startling reflections on everything from literature to philosophy to raising peacocks.
Past Reviews
A Review of Only the Dead
Braumoeller dispatches the unconvincing argument that, as Pinker claims, the spread of “Renaissance humanism and empathy” is driving a decline in war.
A Review of Did You Kill Anyone?
In treating the military as an education rather than a job or a weapon, Beauchamp illuminates the restlessness of the American heart.
A Review of The New Class War
Lind seems to have a picture in his mind of a more cooperative, more Tocquevillian America, but he endorses means that would be immensely destructive.
A Review of Progressivism: The Strange History of a Radical Idea
If we broaden our perspective, we see that the Progressive movement was an effort to undermine much more than just the Declaration and Constitution.
A Review of The World Philosophy Made
Scott Soames demonstrates how analytical philosophy shaped our world, but slights phenomenology and religion.
Book Review
There is no reason to believe that the founders’ approach to church-state relations can be understood by careful study of Virginia’s disestablishment.
Book Review
In a culture in which social trust is widespread, entrepreneurship and free exchange become more plausible and sustainable.
Book Review
Nelson successfully shows how the liberal ideas of metaphysical and political freedom were part of a grand strategy to vindicate the justice of God.
Book Review
Leon Kass moved from science to the humanities as a renowned teacher of great books and applier of their wisdom, and we can learn much from him.
A Review of These Truths: A History of the United States
Lepore’s book reads like an effort to create a storyline that could help us to restore a lost world, but it is not history.
Book Review
When Flaherty argues for a "global judiciary," he means a better American judiciary to speak—when convenient—in the name of "the world community."
Book Review
We must rediscover how Aristotle’s Rhetoric brings light into what Socrates saw as the political “cave.”
Book Review
Nudgers must then be endowed with significant interpretive leeway when it comes to setting priorities. Is this freedom?
Book Review
Michael Faber provides a convincing account that Anti-Federalists supported a bill of rights, but only after their failure to stop the Constitution.