by Mallory Factor ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 8, 2014
An uneven but useful handbook for those looking to understand the roots of conservatism and the contours of the contemporary...
Prominent conservatives speak out about their movement’s convictions, history and heroes.
Originally delivered as guest lectures for a seminar on the Conservative Intellectual Tradition in America run by professor and editor Factor (International Politics and American Government/The Citadel; Shadowbosses: Government Unions Control America and Rob Taxpayers Blind, 2012, etc.), this collection kicks off with an overarching piece by publisher Alfred S. Regnery on “The Pillars of Conservatism.” Regnery identifies some of the themes—liberty, tradition and order, rule of law, belief in God—thinkers—Locke, Hume, Burke—and texts—the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution—that inform conservatives. He emphasizes the post–World War II American conservative movement, invoking names like William F. Buckley Jr., Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan. His observations serve as appropriate launching pads for the authors who follow, each with a special expertise that fleshes out a topic or offers new insight into a particular strand of conservatism. A few of these essays transition awkwardly to the page—e.g., Newt Gingrich’s too-colloquial remarks on the American Revolution, Rand Paul’s tossed-off observations on bending conservatism in a libertarian direction, and a gassy afterword by Haley Barbour on party-building and winning elections. On the other hand, there are some gems: Michael Barone’s thoughtful essay on Tocqueville and ordered liberty, historian David Norcross on the centrality of Edmund Burke, economist Yaron Brook on three seminal, conservative economists, journalist David Keene on Buckley’s political vision, former Assistant Secretary of Defense Douglas Feith’s personal history of neoconservatism and organizer Ralph Reed’s stout defense of social conservatism. No surprise to find Donald Rumsfeld (on the war on terror) and Edwin Meese (on the Reagan Revolution) among the contributors here, but there’s room, too, under Factor’s big tent for former CIA Director—and Democrat—R. James Woolsey to comment on national security.
An uneven but useful handbook for those looking to understand the roots of conservatism and the contours of the contemporary movement.Pub Date: April 8, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-06-229069-4
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Broadside Books/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2014
Share your opinion of this book
More by Mallory Factor
BOOK REVIEW
by Mallory Factor with Elizabeth Factor
by Elie Wiesel & translated by Marion Wiesel ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 16, 2006
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
Share your opinion of this book
More by Elie Wiesel
BOOK REVIEW
by Elie Wiesel ; edited by Alan Rosen
BOOK REVIEW
by Elie Wiesel ; illustrated by Mark Podwal
BOOK REVIEW
by Elie Wiesel ; translated by Marion Wiesel
by Paul Kalanithi ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 19, 2016
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
Awards & Accolades
Likes
18
Our Verdict
GET IT
Google Rating
Kirkus Reviews'
Best Books Of 2016
New York Times Bestseller
Pulitzer Prize Finalist
A neurosurgeon with a passion for literature tragically finds his perfect subject after his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.
Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. Searching for meaning and purpose in his life, Kalanithi pursued a doctorate in literature and had felt certain that he wouldn’t enter the field of medicine, in which his father and other members of his family excelled. “But I couldn’t let go of the question,” he writes, after realizing that his goals “didn’t quite fit in an English department.” “Where did biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect?” So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which “would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.” The author’s empathy undoubtedly made him an exceptional doctor, and the precision of his prose—as well as the moral purpose underscoring it—suggests that he could have written a good book on any subject he chose. Part of what makes this book so essential is the fact that it was written under a death sentence following the diagnosis that upended his life, just as he was preparing to end his residency and attract offers at the top of his profession. Kalanithi learned he might have 10 years to live or perhaps five. Should he return to neurosurgery (he could and did), or should he write (he also did)? Should he and his wife have a baby? They did, eight months before he died, which was less than two years after the original diagnosis. “The fact of death is unsettling,” he understates. “Yet there is no other way to live.”
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8840-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
Share your opinion of this book
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Hey there, book lover.
We’re glad you found a book that interests you!
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Don’t fret. We’ll find you.