Marriage and the Middle Class

Labor’s Love Lost – The Rise and Fall of the Working-Class Family in America Andrew J. Cherlin Russell Sage, 2014; 272 pages, $35.00 Andrew J. Cherlin, the Benjamin H. Griswold III Professor of Sociology and Public Policy at Johns Hopkins University, has spent a career studying marriage and family in the United States. His work […]

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Soulless Sex

The End of Sex – How Hookup Culture is Leaving a Generation Unhappy, Sexually Unfulfilled, and Confused About Intimacy Donna Freitas Basic Books, 2013; 240 pages, $25.99 If you have read one piece decrying the hookup culture on college campuses, you may feel you have read them all.  Hooking up degrades women, making them feel […]

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Does Sex Have Meaning? (And Who Can Really Say?)

On the Meaning of Sex J. Budziszewski ISI Books, 2011; 145 pages, $27.95 Noah Webster was no intellectual slouch.  Proficient in the languages of the ancient Near East as well as of modern Europe, he painstakingly compiled the etymology, orthography, and signification of 70,000 words for the great American Dictionary of the English Language published […]

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Adoption Anecdotes

The Child Catchers: Rescue, Trafficking, and the New Gospel of Adoption Kathryn Joyce Public Affairs, 2013; 352 pages, $26.99 Four years ago, Kathryn Joyce published Quiverfull: Inside the Christian Patriarchy Movement, a critical treatment of an evangelical Christian group wherein women married and obeyed their husbands, had lots of babies, and stayed home to take […]

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Marriage Doesn’t Mean What They Think It Means

What is Marriage? Man and Woman: A Defense Sherif Girgis, Ryan T. Anderson, and Robert P. George Encounter Books, 2012; 168 pages, $15.99 In june, Justice Samuel Alito dissented from the majority opinion of the U.S. Supreme Court that held a law that retained the definition of marriage as a husband and wife for federal […]

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As Goes the Family…

How the West Really Lost God: A New Theory of Secularization Mary Eberstadt Templeton Press, 2013; 272 pages, $24.95 This is perhaps the clearest and most informative work yet published on the sociology of American religion and also the best, a work that carries the subject to a level that all subsequent analysts need to […]

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Expect the Unexpected

What to Expect When No One’s Expecting America’s Coming Demographic Disaster Jonathan Last Encounter Books, 2013; 248 pages, $23.99 Jonathan Last’s What to Expect When No One’s Expecting is a surprisingly entertaining tour of demographics. A talented writer, Last takes a dry, academic subject and makes it come alive. He persuasively argues that demographic decline […]

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Shifting the Marriage Conversation

Getting the Marriage Conversation Right – A Guide for Effective Dialogue William May Emmaus Road Publishing, 2012; 82 pages, $5.95 When the socialist government of France began to move ahead with plans to redefine marriage to include same-sex couples, some observers were surprised at the very significant public opposition that resulted. On January 13, 2013 […]

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Protecting the First “Little Platoon”

The Righteous Mind – Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion Jonathan Haidt Pantheon Books, 2012; 448 pages, $28.95 “To be attached to the subdivision, to love the little platoon we belong to in society, is the first principle (the germ as it were) of public affections. It is the first link in […]

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Disillusioned in the Ivy League

Sex and God at Yale Porn, Political Correctness, and a Good Education Gone Bad Nathan Harden Thomas Dunne Books, 2012; 320 pages, $25.99 Nathan Harden’sstoryof being admitted to Yale is an unconventional one. Harden grew up in various states across the South and began dreaming of Yale at ten years old. When he was in […]

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