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Reviews

Book reviews from the writers and editors of Current


REVIEW: Tangled Webs

Heather P. Venable

The deceptions that followed Ukraine’s nuclear disarmament have raised the level of threat

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REVIEW: Purity Culture and Toxic Masculinity

Rachel Darnall

It’s time to rethink the virtue of chastity

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REVIEW: Still More Reasons to Be Grateful for Immigrants

Agnes Howard
May 11, 2023

Parents who come from someplace else have a lot to teach everyone else

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REVIEW: So Many Angles

Elizabeth Stice
May 9, 2023

In Our America, Ken Burns keeps the pictures still—and just as piercing

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REVIEW: Beginning with Birth

Dixie Dillon Lane
May 3, 2023

What if natality—rather than mortality—had the last word?

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ROUNDTABLE: Natality: Toward a Philosophy of Birth

Ellen Koneck, Natalie Carnes, Leah Libresco Sargeant and Agnes Howard
May 2, 2023

Jennifer Banks’ book opens pathways and unveils vistas

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REVIEW: A Focused Gaze on Words

Michael Jimenez
April 26, 2023

Suspicion of a text is easy. Trusting is hard.

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REVIEW: Ignorance Is Bliss?

Benjamin Aldes Wurgaft
April 25, 2023

Choose what you know wisely

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REVIEW: The Free Speech Conundrum

Jon D. Schaff
April 12, 2023

If neutrality regarding speech is impossible, how do we settle our disputes about it?

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REVIEW: The Middle Children of History

Christina Bieber Lake
April 3, 2023

Do you think ChatGPT can write a novel? Read this book.

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What I am reading: a review of Rick Kennedy’s Winds of Santa Ana

Nadya Williams
March 31, 2023

…

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REVIEW: The Genesis of Gender

Andrea Turpin
March 28, 2023

In Abigail Favale’s view, our wholeness as individuals and communities is at stake

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REVIEW: Faith and Transcendence in Fiction

Jacob Lupfer
March 21, 2023

The World Cannot Give shows us Gen Z through a decidedly religious lens

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REVIEW: A Man for the Age of Tech Tycoons

Carolynn Roncaglia
March 15, 2023

The life of Crassus is worth remembering—especially on the ides of March

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REVIEW: Evangelicals + Celebrity = ?

D. G. Hart
March 9, 2023

Katelyn Beaty’s book makes this much clear: It’s a codependent love

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REVIEW: “Nana Really Wants Me to Do This”

M. Elizabeth Carter
February 28, 2023

In Seventy Times Seven, mercy, pain, and justice meet in unanticipated ways

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REVIEW: Decency Doesn’t Stop at the Border

Christopher Gehrz
February 24, 2023

Timely reflections for the first anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine 

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REVIEW: What Would Adam Smith Do?

Daniel K. Williams
February 21, 2023

There may be no satisfying answer to this question, says Glory Liu

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REVIEW: Smashing Statues

Evan Kutzler
February 14, 2023

Unintended consequences threaten ongoing harm

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REVIEW: Destination, Berlin

Lisa J. DeBoer
February 7, 2023

A new biography of Hilma af Klint forces a question: What is the purpose of art?

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REVIEW: The Burnout Challenge

David Kee
January 31, 2023

You are not the (only) problem 

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REVIEW: On the Flattening of Jim Crow History

John Fea
January 27, 2023

A Marxist political scientist, and a member of the last generation to experience segregation, tells his story

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REVIEW: What Hath Law to Do with Democracy?

Jon D. Schaff
January 26, 2023

In de Dijn’s history of freedom, the relationship is not entirely clear

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REVIEW: What Went Wrong with American Motherhood

Agnes Howard
January 19, 2023

If you can’t “have it all,” what can you have?

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REVIEW: Religious War and Religious Peace

John H. Haas
January 10, 2023

What if religion is not responsible for religious wars?

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REVIEW: Out There with a Lantern

Paul Luikart
January 3, 2023

Cormac McCarthy inspires a consequential question: What is the worth of holy awe?

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REVIEW: Bono, Christian Neoliberal (but also, perhaps, a little bit more)

Russell Arben Fox
December 22, 2022

If Bono is a picture of our moment, he’s also used his faith to shape it

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REVIEW: Stegner in California

Kate Lucky
December 7, 2022

Even amid insufferable striving, community asserts itself

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REVIEW: Who’ll Rock that Cradle?

Julie Durbin
November 30, 2022

Only a heart properly broken can bear the weight of a world at war

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REVIEW: Listening to Old Voices

Eric Miller
November 17, 2022

Berry’s late stories sing of gratitude and grace

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REVIEW: Pomo Prez

Christopher Shannon
November 7, 2022

Narcissism really isn’t that complicated. But its effects are.

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REVIEW: A Winner’s History of the Catholic Church

Christopher Shannon
October 28, 2022

John McGreevy’s story calls into question the future of the Church itself

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REVIEW: Untrustworthy

Greg Williams
October 19, 2022

In the midst of our knowledge crisis, Bonnie Kristian offers no easy answers

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REVIEW: The Need to Be Whole

Elisabeth Lasch-Quinn
October 12, 2022

Wendell Berry’s long ramble of a book is cause for celebration

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REVIEW: Agrarian Spirit

Belden Lane
October 11, 2022

Our plight and our salvation are one

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REVIEW: After Philosophy

Christopher Shannon
September 23, 2022

Alasdair MacIntyre exposed the failings of the liberal tradition. Do we dare remember?

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REVIEW: Pilgrims Who Did More than Survive in A Strange Land

D. G. Hart
September 7, 2022

Centuries in, the tension between Catholic ideals and the American experience remains taut and troubled

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REVIEW: How’s that Post-Christian Thing Goin’ for Ya?

Timothy Larsen
August 31, 2022

The admonition “Be careful what you wish for” turns out to have sound historical backing

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REVIEW: One Cheer for Purdy

Antón Barba-Kay
August 26, 2022

Jedidiah Purdy’s call for more self-governance raises a question: How far can better policy take us?

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REVIEW: Creativity Calls for More Than a Room of One’s Own

Agnes Howard
July 13, 2022

Julie Phillips imagines the possibility of creative work and family life combined

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