America’s Constitutional Soul by Harvey C. Mansfield, Jr. Johns Hopkins University Press, 236 pages, $32 In this collection of characteristically brilliant essays, Harvey C. Mansfield Jr., one of our nation’s most eminent conservative political theorists, defends the American Constitution as . . . . Continue Reading »
The Covenant of the Wild: Why Animals Choose Domestication by steven budiansky morrow, 190 pages, $18 Having yet again picked up the garbage the raccoons repeatedly spill in my backyard. I was well prepared for Steven Budiansky’s The Covenant of the Wild. These wily creatures, who by all accounts . . . . Continue Reading »
The shockingly violent reaction to the Rodney King verdict, destined to be remembered as the great Los Angeles Riot of 1992, has provoked more intense discussion among the American public about the nation’s perennial problems of race relations and urban affairs than at any time since the “long . . . . Continue Reading »
Salem Is My Dwelling Place: A Life of Nathaniel Hawthorne by edward haviland miller university of iowa press, 596 pages, $35 Jefferson’s public career focused on securing for Americans,” the historian Edmund S. Morgan has written, “a right of expatriation from the past.” This was a large . . . . Continue Reading »
We as academicians are “lovers of wisdom” first and last, and should we not be so, we would be serving under false pretenses as professors of higher education. To love wisdom is not, of course, to be wise, as if our beginning were our end. To love wisdom is to desire and labor toward wisdom . . . . Continue Reading »
As modern religionists, we face a curious predicament when we think of the Devil. On the one hand, we know that the forests and glens of Western culture have been cleared of the spirits and goblins that frightened our ancestors. When we are sick, we take a pill. When we are scared by some . . . . Continue Reading »
Theology and Dialogue edited by bruce d. marshall university of notre dame press, 302 pages, $14.95 paper. These “essays in conversation with George Lindbeck” are also essays in deserved celebration of a thinker who has done as much as anyone in the last half-century to advance ecumenical . . . . Continue Reading »
As a notorious critic of Darwinism, I enjoy reading a newsletter called Basis, which is published by an organization calling itself the San Francisco Bay Area Skeptics. These self-styled skeptics take a very dim view of anyone who suggests that the Darwinian theory of evolution might be an . . . . Continue Reading »
Ecclesiastical anarchism has a long history in American Christianity, but few have gone quite as far as James H. Rutz, whose new book, The Open Church, had a prominent advertising spread in World, an evangelical news magazine. To his credit, Rutz has identified some of the glaring . . . . Continue Reading »