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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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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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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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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The End of Men: And the Rise of Women Hanna Rosin Riverhead Books, 2012; 320 pages, $27.95 Despite the title of Hanna Rosin’s book, The End of Men is clearly written from the standpoint of women. Men as a sex are languishing: they do not complete college, are not working full-time jobs, and, with the […]
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Baby-Making: What the New Reproductive Treatments Mean for Families and Society Bart Fauser and Paul Devroey Oxford University Press, 2011; 292 pages, $29.95 What does it mean to “make” a child? The title of this book is presumably a nod to the euphemistic meaning of the term, but with the twist that it invokes the […]
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Adam and Eve after the Pill: Paradoxes of the Sexual Revolution Mary Eberstadt Ignatius Press, 2012; 171 pages, $19.95 As Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius’s mandate requiring all health-insurance plans to cover contraception “free of charge” to women took effect August 1 of this year, Mary Eberstadt’s collection of essays Adam and Eve […]
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Godly Seed: American Evangelicals Confront Birth Control, 1873–1973 Allan Carlson Transaction Publishers, 2012; 170 pages, $29.95 These days, the only time mainline Protestant denominations warrant headlines is when they talk about sex and marriage. Meeting this past summer in Indianapolis, the General Convention of the Episcopal Church attracted attention from journalists and editors when its […]
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How Civilizations Die: And Why Islam Is Dying Too David P. Goldman Regnery, 2011; 331 pages, $27.95 As one who appreciates the link between the family and the economy, David P. Goldman is one of our better economists. Yet because he is the sort of writer who likes to formulate Universal Laws of History, his […]
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The Case for Polarized Politics: Why America Needs Social Conservatism Jeffrey Bell Encounter Books, 2012; 322 pages, $25.95 For the past twenty years, the conventional wisdom espoused in Republican circles, by establishment types and by many who consider themselves conservative, is that candidates who want to win elections should avoid getting sidetracked into “divisive” social […]
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