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Illiberal Democracy

Demopolis: Democracy Before Liberalism in Theory and Practiceby josiah obercambridge, 222 pages, $24.90 Liberal democracy is a modern synthesis. Liberalism—a respect for human or natural rights; limits on the scope and power of public authority; state neutrality on fundamental questions of, . . . . Continue Reading »

Briefly Noted

With God in America: The Spiritual Legacy of an Unlikely Jesuit by walter j. ciszek, s.j. loyola, 264 pages, $19.95 With God in America completes the triptych of the legendary Walter J. Ciszek, S.J., an American missionary priest who endured twenty-three years in the Soviet Gulag. While the . . . . Continue Reading »

Not Power But Glory

Jews and Christians alike pledge a higher loyalty that they honor in ways that seem incomprehensible to the world.” So writes Fr. Romanus Cessario in “Non Possumus” (February). As an example of such incomprehensible devotion, he cites the kidnapping of the child Edgardo Mortara in 1858. The . . . . Continue Reading »

No Patrimony

The age-old distinction between schoolchildren and university students is fast losing its meaning. On many campuses, the infantilization of university students has become institutionalized. College administrators treat students as if they were biologically mature children rather than young men and . . . . Continue Reading »

McAuley Beyond Despair

James McAuley had a gift for overcoming first impressions. Manning Clark, the future ­doyen of Australian historians, met the twenty-five-year-old poet in the crowd at an Aussie Rules game. McAuley was blind drunk, full of wild slogans about art and politics, and looked wrecked even by the usual . . . . Continue Reading »

Pagan Horror

Hitler’s Monsters: A Supernatural History of the Third Reichby eric kurlanderyale, 448 pages, $35 That Hitler and his inner circle were mad is not a matter of controversy. The source and character of their madness, though, is subject to debate. Eric Kurlander wants us to understand Nazi ideology . . . . Continue Reading »

Chatterley on Trial

Lady Chatterley’s Loverby d. h. lawrencemacmillan, 432 pages, $12.99 Six weeks after a London criminal court permitted the unexpurgated publication of Lady Chatterley’s Lover on November 2, 1960, a forlorn rearguard action took place in the crimson and gold chamber of the House of Lords, then . . . . Continue Reading »

Saint and Scribe

Lessons in Hope: My Unexpected Life with St. John Paul IIby george weigelbasic, 368 pages, $32 Czesław Miłosz once said that, in terms of moral grandeur and personal presence, St. John Paul II could have been one of Shakespeare’s kings. No less a judge than Joseph Ratzinger noted that it was . . . . Continue Reading »

Non Possumus

Kidnapped by the Vatican? The Unpublished Memoirs of Edgardo Mortaraby vittorio messoriignatius, 190 pages, $17.95 At nightfall on Wednesday, June 23, 1858, a knock came on the door of Salomone and Marianna Mortara, Jewish residents of Bologna. Only the wife was at home with the children. It . . . . Continue Reading »

How Much Dreiser Does a Man Need?

Theodore Dreiser is ranked among our great authors; he was a syllabus mainstay for as polished a master as Saul Bellow. Yet he is neither among the great English-language prose stylists nor a writer of nuanced or profound moral vision. His idea of human life was crudely mechanical and deterministic. . . . . Continue Reading »

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