When Gay People Get Married What Happens When Societies Legalize Same-Sex Marriage M. V. Lee Badgett NYU Press, 2009; 285 pages, $35.00 In 2001, the Netherlands became the first nation in the world to legally and fully redefine marriage to include same-sex couples. The experience of the Dutch with same-sex marriage would, therefore, seem to […]
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Womenomics Write Your Own Rules for Success Claire Shipman and Katty Kay HarperBusiness, 2009; 256 pages, $27.99 Some time after Rosie the riveter helped in the World War Two effort, the percentage of women working outside the home doubled and women made their way into the front offices. According to an April 1996 essay in […]
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The New American Economy The Failure of Reaganomics and a New Way Forward Bruce Bartlett Palgrave McMillan, 2009; 266 pages; $28.00 It is a shame that John Maynard Keynes isn’t alive to defend himself against Bruce Bartlett’s praise. The great English economist, who did not suffer sycophants lightly, would have abominated posthumous ones. Bartlett has […]
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Living Constitution, Dying Faith:Progressivism and the New Science of Jurisprudence Bradley C. S. Watson ISI Books, 2009; 250 pages, $25.00 Toward the end of Living Constitution,Bradley C. S. Watson recalls the remark by the second Earl of Pembroke as to how Parliament can do anything but make a man into a woman. Pembroke’s point was that […]
Read MoreThe Dismal Science:How Thinking Like an Economist Undermines Community Stephen A. Marglin Harvard University Press, 2008; 359 pages The best thing about The Dismal Science: How Thinking Like an Economist Undermines Community is the title. Stephen Marglin is absolutely right that something is wrong with modern economics, particularly its treatment of communities of all kinds, including the […]
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Family and Civilization Carle C. Zimmerman; Edited by James Kurth with an introduction by Allan C. Carlson ISI Books, 2008; 320 pages, $18.00 The War between the State and the Family:How Government Divides and Impoverishes Patricia Morgan Transaction Publishers, 2008; 162 pages, $24.95 When first published in 1947, Family and Civilization was a significant book on the […]
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Soft Despotism, Democracy’s Drift:Montesquieu, Rousseau, Tocqueville, and the Modern Prospect Paul A. Rahe Yale University Press, 2008; 400 pages, $38.00 The American people have fallen into the habit of expecting government to solve all problems, removing risk from their lives, and providing for all their needs and wants. It is commonplace now for individuals to look […]
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Bad Girls Go Everywhere:The Life of Helen Gurley Brown Jennifer Scanlon Oxford University Press, 2009; 288 pages, $27.95 Beside Every Successful Man:A Woman’s Guide to Having it All Megan Basham Crown Forum, 2008; 256 pages, $24.95 These books offer a fascinating look at two alternative models of husband-wife relationships. In each marriage, the spouses are working […]
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Quiverfull:Inside the Christian Patriarchy Movement Kathryn Joyce Beacon Press, 2009; 258 pages, $25.95 Many Americans were appalled by the behavior of “Octomom” Nadya Suleman, the publicity-hungry, unemployed single mother whose litter of artificially-inseminated octuplets brought her offspring total to fourteen. Many were also outraged by developments on Jon and Kate Plus 8—the reality television show, which will […]
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A Promise to Ourselves:A Journey Through Fatherhood and Divorce Alec Baldwin St. Martin’s Press, 2008; 240 pages, $24.95 Taken into Custody:The War Against Fathers, Marriage, and the Family Stephen Baskerville Cumberland House, 2007; 368 pages, $24.95 In 2007, the media had a feeding frenzy around a voice-mail message actor Alec Baldwin left his daughter. He screamed […]
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