“Robert Nisbet for the Present Age.” Kirstin Birkhaug describes the experience of teaching Robert Nisbet’s The Present Age and watching her students respond to his analysis of America’s twinned statism and individualism: “My students do not want to feel...
But I wonder: as it strains to get over Christ, will the West survive without noticing all the other beaten horses of the world? Or will it one day break its supposed sanity and collapse back into a foregone pity?
It would be easy to dismiss my argument as a simple platitude: “Trust God.” But it is trust in the infinite that allows us to trust finite beings.
The execution of Marie Antoinette and the treatment of her family is nothing for France to be proud of. Her punishment is the first evidence of a revolution run amok.
But even a novice like me—hobbled by an ignorance of veterinarian science and perennially pulled toward too many projects—found the book interesting and useful.
“‘Your Friend, Wendell’: A 90th Birthday Tribute to Wendell Berry.” To mark Wendell Berry’s 90th birthday, The Library of America published a set of reflections by several of the people he’s influenced over the years. Here’s a taste of...
...the real artist, for both O’Connor and Ference, is one who sees and expresses gratitude for what is already there, and deals with it in such a way as to reveal aspects of it that may not be visible at first glance.
We cannot give into the temptation of thinking that our times are so different that basic civility must be cast aside. Once we have done that, we are lost.

Safe at Last

As the sun rises over the Nile or my daughter’s grave, it occurs to me that the ancient Egyptians may have been onto something. Jess lives on, her soul soars to heaven, yet she returns each day, as close as a whispered web or a patient beetle on my boots.
Donald Trump’s selection of J.D. Vance as his vice presidential running mate has put “postliberalism” back in the news, assuming it had ever left. Vance’s embrace of postliberalism and the Trumpist cause of “national conservatism” will no doubt continue...