I have just received copies of my new book from the University of Chicago distribution people. You can order it on amazon or directly from the publisher, St. Augustine’s Press. Contrary to what the amazon page says, it’ll show up there in a few days at most.
It’s a beautifully produced hardback for under $18 (on amazon). The dustjacket itself is worth the price, featuring a stunning reproduction of Edward Hopper’s classic American painting NIGHTHAWKS.
And the back cover features rave advances notices from Dan Mahoney, Father Schall, "Dr. Pat" Deneen, Yuval Levin, and Ralph Hancock
The book covers an amazing array of contemporary concerns in clear and accessible ways, almost free from distracting scholarly conventions.
Here are the chapter titles: Two Views of Americanization, A Friendly Critique of Pure Crunchiness [vs. Crunchy cons], Against the Lobotomites [against whom I ally with Tom Pangle], The Socratic Philosopher and the American Individual [on Bloom’s CLOSING], Stuck-with-Virtue Conservatism, McWilliams and the Problem of American Political Education, Real Men Prove Darwin Wrong Again, Murray and Brownson, Toward a Consistent Ethic of Judicial Restraint, Is the Body Property?, Modernity and Postmodernity, Tocqueville at 200, Where’s the Love?, Tocqueville on the Doctrine of Interest, Disco and Democracy [on Whit Stillman], An American Fantasy: Love, Nobility and Friendship in CASABLANCA, A Story about Nothing: The Two Kinds of Nihilists and ONe Kind of Christian in Flannery O’Connor’s GOOD COUNTRY PEOPLE.
Where else can you get can so much classy entertainment at one low, low price?
I just ordered a copy--I plan on reading before I see you in Colorado.
Congratulations on your new publication!
A whole chapter picking on poor ol Rod Dreher?
Peter, you're the Man!
"WM": I think Peter's measured critique of crunchy conservatism will become more relevant in the coming months and years. Which means that we'll be hearing lots more about Kirk and Macintyre and Berry and ... .
It's a fine book - Peter is like really good cheese, smooth if sometimes tart, a good aftertaste and ever better with age - and I enthusiastically recommend it. Something of a plug of my own: it's worth reading Peter's really fine essay on Carey McWilliams (disclosure - Carey was my teacher) along with the critique of Dreher. Carey was about the most brilliant 20th-century political theorist to have come down the pike, and he was far subtler, had a more profound understanding on the sources of modernity, and was ultimately more persuasive (in my view) in diagnosing the ills of modernity and liberalism alike than Dreher's lifestyle crunchiness.
The book as a whole is really fine, and I congratulate Peter on yet another major contribution to our self-understanding as Americans and as humans.
Congratulations, Peter!
May I add my "Hurrah!" Your book sounds very good and maybe the reading of that one chapter can get me to understand my oldest son's fascination with Whit Stillman.