In 1981, a book was published by a well-regarded, but-until-then-not-terribly-famous philosopher. The book was called After Virtue; the author was Alasdair MacIntyre. The book sent shock waves throughout the academic community—shock waves that resonate even today. Some consider it the most influential book of philosophy published in the last fifty years. In the succeeding years […]
The Prince and the Pauper is a long-ago case of mistaken identity set in Britain’s glorious crown London, in what we in nowadays-America would call the suburbs. A poor boy (Tom Canty) and a rich boy (Prince Edward Tudor) exchange garments and lives for what they think will be a few vain, fleeting hours that […]
Shakespeare (1564-1616) must have sensed these cultural changes deeply enough to predict and highlight the perils of individualism in some of his plays, namely Romeo and Juliet. In his time, and especially in the seventeenth century, the notion of the individual changed significantly in its relation to the church, the monarchy, society, personal freedom, the literary life, public and private life, and even […]
The following is a list, not of the twelve greatest Christian novels, since I haven’t read all the novels ever written, but at least twelve of the greatest. Any one of these would make a great Christmas present for the reader in your family (hopefully there is more than one). These are not children’s books, of course, […]
Though written in the late 1940s, Ideas Have Consequences, by Richard M. Weaver, remains more relevant and prescient than ever. The work, grounded in political philosophy, theology, virtue, and history, presents a piercing assessment of modern culture. Yet these fields are incorporated for the sole purpose of revealing the truth about our modern culture and […]
A common question asked of classical Christian educators is why we should read the pagans. If you had to buy one book to help you answer this question, this is it. Markos, one of the most exciting Christian writers today, explains how Homer, Hesiod, the Greek dramatists, and Virgil foreshadowed the Christian revelation. Markos joins […]
Book Review: The Schools We Need and Why We Don’t Have Them by E. D. Hirsch E. D. Hirsch, a first-rate scholar and the author of Cultural Literacy, masterfully exposes the philosophy behind progressive education to its source in 19th-century Romanticism, a European literary movement that produced some beautiful poetry, but was disastrous as an […]
That the greatest publishing event in history should turn out to have been a children’s book about an English orphan boy training to be a wizard has, depending on who you are, been a cause for celebration—or a matter of concern. There are parents whose children wait for months for the next volume in the […]