From the editor’s desk Paul Tuns I read a lot and many of the books I read get reviewed in these pages, either in longer reviews or essays under my byline or as unsigned brief reviews. But there are many that I can’t get around to writing a review about and I want to let you know about several of them, and [...]
Mary Zwicker, Review: A new feminist, left-wing documentary on the topic of birth control has been released … but it’s not what you would expect. The new film, produced by Ricki Lake’s production company and directed by Abby Epstein, is called The Business of Birth Control, and it provides an in-depth analysis of the history of hormonal birth control, concluding that women need [...]
Paul Tuns, Review: Superabundance: The Story of Population Growth, Innovation and Human Flourishing on an Infinitely Bountiful Planet by Marian Tupy and Gale Pooley (Cato Institute, $45, 547 pages) Worries about "overpopulation" are always followed by demands for population control to prevent the growing mass of people from stripping the planet bare. The problem with that line of thinking according to Marian Tupy [...]
Paul Tuns, Review: Prairie Lion: The Life & Times of Ted Byfield by Jonathon Van Maren (Christian Heritage Press, $19.50, 247 pages) When Jonathon Van Maren set out to write the biography of Ted Byfield, he was amazed that one had not already been written. As the author notes, if Byfield had floated in the stream of fashionable opinion, he would have been [...]
Faith, Force, and Reason: An Armchair History of the Rule of Law David M. Beatty (University of Toronto Press, $40 pb, 336 pages): David M. Beatty, professor emeritus in the Faculty of Law at the University of Toronto, has written a truly remarkable and valuable book, Faith, Force, and Reason. In the preface he sets out his project: “This is a book [...]
The Statesman as Thinker: Portraits of Greatness, Courage and Moderation Daniel J. Mahoney (Encounter, $41, 231 pages): Daniel Maloney, a political philosopher whose byline appears regularly in conservative publications exploring big ideas, has written a highly readable book examining statesmanship through the lens of exemplary figures as Edmund Burke, Alexis de Tocqueville, Abraham Lincoln, Winston Churchill, Charles de Gaulle and Vaclav Havel, [...]
Curing Mad Truths: Medieval Wisdom for the Modern Age Rémi Brague (Notre Dame, $34 pb, 142 pages): The French Catholic conservative Rémi Brague’s latest English-language book, Curing Mad Truths -- based on a series of lectures to English-speaking audiences -- examines the fundamental problems with modernity and finds the cure for the errors of modern man’s ways in the Middle Ages. Brague [...]
The Quiet Before: On the Unexpected Origins of Radical Ideas Gal Beckerman (Crown, $39, 331 pages): Gal Beckerman’s The Quiet Before examines how radical ideas are born, stir, rise, and eventually influence the general public. Beckerman argues that for ideas to grow in popularity, they must be sustained by a small group of committed believers who share them through smaller circulation media [...]
Wild Problems: A Guide to Decisions That Define Us by Russ Roberts (Portfolio, $36, 207 pages) Paul Tuns Review: Russ Roberts is the host of the EconTalk podcast, author of numerous books about economics, and president of Shalem College in Jerusalem. After spending most of his life applying the rules of economics as taught at the University of Chicago -- the importance [...]
Angelica Vecchiato, Review: Help Her Be Brave by Amy Ford (Moody Publishers, $7.90, 201 pages) Panic, fear and shame gripped 19-year-old Amy Ford. Young and in-love, she found herself facing an unplanned pregnancy. Although a steadfast Christian and pro-lifer, feeling pressured, Ford seriously considered an abortion. Too distressed at the doctor’s office to go through with the procedure, she was sent home by [...]
Rick McGinnis: We have been living with Francis Ford Coppola’s film The Godfather for 50 years. Even more than the Mario Puzo book on which it’s based, what book can hope to resonate in what has become an increasingly visual, post-literate society? Coppola’s film has had a profound effect not just on movies, but on how a first world society built on [...]
Strange New World: How Thinkers and Activists Redefined Identity and Sparked the Sexual Revolution Carl R. Trueman (Crossway, $24, 204 pages): In The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self (reviewed in these pages in July 2021), Carl R. Trueman, a professor of Biblical and religious studies at Grove City College, examined the philosophical roots of our decadent culture. In Strange New [...]
Angelica Vecchiato Review Fierce Mercy by Abby Johnson (Baker Books, $16.99, 240 pages): The work at an abortion facility is emotionally draining. Tasks, even the most minute ones — walking women from their cars, scheduling the fatal procedure, or witnessing first-hand the carnage after the abortion — tack on, even subconsciously, significant spiritual and emotional tolls for those carrying them out. Shocked [...]
All One in Christ: A Catholic Critique of Racism and Critical Race Theory Edward Feser (Ignatius Press, $18 163 pages) Pasadena City College philosophy professor: Edward Feser has offered a brief but timely critique of Critical Race Theory that has taken hold of academia and is at the heart of the woke worldview. Feser, taking his title from Paul’s letter to the [...]
Progressive Conservatism: How Republicans Will Become America’s Natural Governing Party F.H. Buckley (Encounter Books, $41, 254 pages): Progressive Conservative has negative connotations for Canadian social conservatives, but do not be turned off the title of F.H. Buckley’s latest book, Progressive Conservatism. In it, he argues against the elite capture of both the Democrats (woke activists) and Republicans (libertarians) that ignore working class [...]