George Will's Guide to Conserving the Founders' Liberalism
July 18, 2019
Discussing The Conservative Sensibility, by George Will
Real Clear Politics
Debate Club
Feb. 2014
A review of The Great Debate: Edmund Burke, Thomas Paine, and the Birth of Right and Left by Yuval Levin
The New Criterion
PDF version
Gordon Wood's America
Dec. 2011/Jan. 2012
A review of The Idea of America: Reflections on the Birth of the United States by Gordon Wood
Policy Review
PDF version
Religion in America
Oct./Nov. 2011
A review of American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us by Robert D. Putnam and David E. Campbell
Policy Review
PDF version
The Cheshire Cat Conservative
Oct./Nov. 2010
A review of Athwart History: Half a Century of Polemics, Animadversions, and Illuminations: A William F. Buckley Jr. Omnibus, edited by Linda Bridges and Roger Kimball
Policy Review
PDF version
Alive and Well
Dec. 28, 2009
A review of Reappraising the Right: The Past and Future of American Conservatism by George H. Nash
The Weekly Standard
PDF version
Conserving
Aug./Sept. 2009
A review of The Conservatives: Ideas and Personalities Throughout American History by Patrick Allitt
Policy Review
PDF version
God and John Rawls
June/July 2009
A review of A Brief Inquiry into the Meaning of Sin and Faith by John Rawls, edited by Thomas Nagel
Policy Review
PDF version
Bookends: 11/9 and 9/11
Fall 2008
A review of America Between the Wars‚ From 11/9 to 9/11: The Misunderstood Years Between the Fall of the Berlin Wall and the Start of the War on Terror by Derek Chollet and James Goldgeier, and The Return of History and the End of Dreams by Robert Kagan
World Affairs
PDF version
On Toleration
Mar./Apr. 2008
A review of Pernicious Tolerance: How Teaching to 'Accept Differences' Undermines Civil Society by Robert Weissberg, and Regulating Aversion: Tolerance in the Age of Identity and Empire by Wendy Brown
The American Interest
PDF version
What Is a University for?
Dec. 2007/Jan. 2008
A review of Education's End: Why Our Colleges and Universities Have Given Up on the Meaning of Life by Anthony T. Kronman
Policy Review
PDF version
American Creed
July 15, 2007
A review of Americanism: The Fourth Great American Religion by David Gelernter
The New York Post
PDF version
Spinoza's Religion
June/July 2007
A review of Betraying Spinoza: The Renegade Jew Who Gave Us Modernity by Rebecca Goldstein
Policy Review
PDF version
Liberal Education, Then and Now
Dec. 2006/Jan. 2007
Essay based on a lecture originally titled "John Stuart Mill's Idea of a University, and Our Own," delivered at the University of St. Andrews, Scotland, Sept. 15, 2006, at a symposium honoring the 200th anniversary of Mill's birth and the address on liberal education he delivered there in 1867.
Policy Review
PDF version
Partisan Freedom
Oct./Nov. 2006
A review of Whose Freedom: The Battle Over America's Most Important Idea by George Lakoff
Policy Review
PDF version
Freedom at War
Sept. 18, 2006
A review of Not a Suicide Pact: The Constitution in a Time of National Emergency by Richard A. Posner
The Weekly Standard
PDF version
War-Torn Democrats
Aug./Sept. 2006
A review of With All Our Might: A Progressive Strategy for Defeating Jihadism and Defending Liberty, edited by Will Marshall, and The Good Fight: Why Liberals --- and Only Liberals --- Can Win the War on Terror and Make America Great Again by Peter Beinart
Policy Review
PDF version
Democracy's Challenge
2005
An introduction to Democracy Dialogues, a Web site produced and maintained by the US Department of State's Bureau of International Information Programs
PDF version
Laws of Nations
Apr./May 2005
A review of A New World Order by Anne-Marie Slaughter, The Limits of International Law by Jack Goldsmith and Eric Posner, and Law without Nations? Why Constitutional Government Requires Sovereign States by Jeremy Rabkin
Policy Review
PDF version
Liberalism and School Choice
2003
Contribution to The Future of School Choice, edited by Paul Peterson
pp. 107-131
Hoover Institution Press
Reasonable Doubts
Dec. 15, 2002
A review of Evil in Modern Thought: An Alternative History of Modern Philosophy by Susan Neiman, and Truth and Truthfulness: An Essay in Genealogy by Bernard Williams
p. BW04
The Washington Post
PDF version
Byron at Ground Zero
Nov. 4, 2002
A review of Romantics at War: Glory and Guilt in the Age of Terrorism by George P. Fletcher
pp. 31-37
The New Republic
PDF version
Beyond Good and Evil
Aug. 18, 2002
A review of Nietzsche: A Philosophical Biography by Rüdiger Safranski, trans. Shelley Frisch, and Zarathustra's Secret: The Interior Life of Friedrich Nietzsche by Joachim Köhler, translated by Ronald Taylor
p. BW15
The Washington Post
PDF version
After Autonomy
June 17, 2002
A review of Liberal Pluralism: The Implications of Value Pluralism for Political Theory and Practice by William Galston
pp. 35-39
The Weekly Standard
PDF version
Jane Addams's Values
Mar. 25, 2002
A review of Jane Addams and the Dream of American Democracy by Jean Bethke Elshtain, and The Jane Addams Reader, edited by Jean Bethke Elshtain
pp. 36-38
The Weekly Standard
PDF version
Down to the Wire
July 27, 2001
A review of Deadlock by the political staff of The Washington Post; Bush v. Gore, edited by E.J. Dionne Jr. and William Kristol; 36 Days by correspondents of The New York Times; and The Perfect Tie by James W. Ceaser and Andrew E. Busch
p. 27
The Times Literary Supplement
PDF version
Reckless Disregard, II
July 20, 2001
A review of The Betrayal of America: How the Supreme Court Undermined the Constitution and Chose our President by Vincent Bugliosi
National Review (online exclusive)
PDF version
Reckless Disregard
July 13, 2001
A review of Supreme Injustice: How the High Court Hijacked Election 2000 by Alan Dershowitz
National Review (online exclusive)
PDF version
Ethicism
Mar. 5, 2001
A review of Conflict of Interest in American Public Life by Andrew Stark
pp. 40-44
The New Republic
PDF version
Wooed by Freedom?
Oct. 2000
A review of Wing to Wing, Oar to Oar, edited by Amy Kass and Leon Kass
pp. 128-133
The Atlantic Monthly
PDF version
Easy Virtue
August 28, 2000
A review of Sovereign Virtue by Ronald Dworkin
pp. 43-45
National Review
PDF version
Liberty at War with Itself?
August 25, 2000
A review of In the Name of Liberalism: Illiberal Social Policy in the United States and Britain by Desmond King
p. 28
The Times Literary Supplement
PDF version
Hobbes and Rousseau in Israel
2000
A commentary in The Jewish Political Tradition, vol. 1, edited by Michael Walzer
pp. 497-500
Yale University Press
Liberalism's Discontents
Feb. 21, 2000
A review of The Betrayal of Liberalism: How the Disciples of Freedom and Equality Helped Foster the Illiberal Politics of Coercion and Control, edited by Hilton Kramer and Roger Kimball
pp. 33-35
The Weekly Standard
PDF version
Other People's Mothers
Jan. 10, 2000
A review of A Darwinian Left: Politics, Evolution and Cooperation by Peter Singer, and Practical Ethics (2nd edition) by Peter Singer
pp. 27-37
The New Republic
PDF version
Response and Restatement
Dec. 1999
Symposium: Virtue and the Making of Modern Liberalism
pp. 5-15
The Yale Journal of Ethics
The Pearl Diver
June 14, 1999
A review of The Attack of the Blob: Hannah Arendt's Concept of the Social by Hanna Fenichel Pitkin
pp. 44-52
The New Republic
PDF version
Mill: Virtue, Liberty and the Discipline of Individuality
1998
in Mill and the Moral Character of Liberalism, edited by Eldon Eisenach
pp. 13-47
Penn State University Press
Fear and Thinking
July 13, 1998
A review of Political Thought and Political Thinkers by Judith N. Shklar, edited by Stanley Hoffmann; and Redeeming Political Thought by Judith N. Shklar, edited by Stanley Hoffmann and Dennis F. Thompson
pp. 34-39
The New Republic
PDF version
The Reason of Revelation
May 25, 1998
A review of Jewish Philosophy and the Crisis of Modernity: Essays and Lectures in Modern Jewish Thought by Leo Strauss, edited by Kenneth Hart Green
pp. 31-34
The Weekly Standard
PDF version
Book Review
Mar. 1998
A review of Free Markets and Social Justice by Cass R. Sunstein
pp. 213-214
The American Political Science Review
PDF version
Book Review
Mar. 1998
A review of The Cambridge Companion to Nietzsche, edited by Kathleen Higgins and Bernd Magnus
pp. 340-342
The Philosophical Review
PDF version
Liberalism Strikes Back
Dec. 15, 1997
A review of The Era of the Individual: A Contribution to a History of Subjectivity by Alain Renaut, translated by M.B. DeBevoise and Franklin Philip
pp. 32-37
The New Republic
PDF version
Between Principles: Liberal Democracy and the Communitarian Challenge
1997
in Democracy: The Challenges Ahead, edited by Yossi Shain and Aharon Klieman
pp. 19-29
London: MacMillan
The Politic Moralist
Sept. 1, 1997
A review of Hypocrisy and Integrity: Machiavelli, Rousseau, and the Ethics of Politics by Ruth W. Grant
pp. 36-40
The New Republic
PDF version
Thou Shalt Not Kill
June 23, 1997
A review of The Curse of Cain: The Violent Legacy of Monotheism by Regina M. Schwartz
pp. 41-45
The New Republic
PDF version
Beyond Pangloss
Apr. 7, 1997
A review of Leibniz' Universal Jurisprudence: Justice as Charity of the Wise by Patrick Riley
pp. 38-41
The New Republic
PDF version
Book Review
Spring 1997
A review of Spinoza, Liberalism, and the Question of Jewish Identity by Steven B. Smith
p. 103
The Wilson Quarterly
PDF version
Liberal Zealotry
March 1994
A review of The Anatomy of Antiliberalism by Stephen Holmes
103, pp. 1363-1382
Yale Law Journal
PDF version