Can you ever resist a siren song? I wrote about what we learn from Odysseus about temptation and how wax, binding, and playing our own song helps us resist it for @mereorthodoxy. mereorthodoxy.com/what-the-o…

What happens when corruption becomes so widespread that people stop expecting honesty from those in power? In this piece, R. R. Reno examines the culture of cynicism surrounding American institutions, from politics and higher education to public life, and argues that restoring trust will require leaders who value honor over wealth and integrity over self-interest. To read the piece, visit firstthings.com/the-stench-o…

It was a pleasure to chat with Jonathan and Peter Leithart about AI. I’ll post the link to the conversation below!

You’ll be able to pick up @IVMiles’ next book, Valiant & Pious, in less than two weeks! davenantinstitute.org/davena…

Read about Whittico in BLACK APPALACHIA: RACE, PLACE, AND IDENTITY Cicero M. Fain III, Sheena Harris Hayes, Wilburn Hayden Jr., and William H. Turner (eds.) (University Press of Kentucky, 2026) kentuckypress.com/9781985903…

🎉 Happy birthday to William Faulkner! 🎂 Faulkner's writing pushed the boundaries of form and storytelling as he explored the moral complexities of his characters and society. If you haven't read any of his works yet, it's never too late to dive into his Southern gothics.

This is a great book, which doesn’t just shed light on what the American Revolution looked like from the perspective of Italian observers, but also offers thought-provoking reflections on what it meant to understand it as a “revolution,” and how that understanding changed over time—and the very concept of revolution with it.

"The real threat to equality is the concentration of power in the state, but Phillips-Fein ignores this threat almost entirely." Read @mungowitz's full review of 'Country of Lords' here: civitasoutlook.pulse.ly/wh9y…

America is still a country that does big things.

Politics in Blue States is different than politics in the Evangelical South, part one million.

The Liberal Arts college is America’s contribution to higher education.

At the large majority of universities today it is entirely possible, even encouraged, for a student to finish four years of education without ever taking a single history class. maddentf.substack.com/p/abol…

RT @gerardtbaker: Nessun dorma! The song sung by a man as he he waits to find out whether or not he will be executed at the hands of a ca…

Good mini-thread.

We're at Syracuse University next week. @BrazosPress @shadihamid @SyrauseU @HendricksChapel @commentmag #ZealotsPod

You know what I also don’t hear nearly as often as I did even ten years ago? “We have great schools” in my town.

The left habitually (disastrously?) neglects two opposite seeming problems: 1. The supposed state representatives of the people acting in their own, not the people’s interests; 2. the people themselves preferring the debased. Yet this is a single neglect of the question of virtue

A new episode of the Revolutionary America podcast is live! In this episode Edward J. Blum speaks with Matthew Mason about his new book Seeking the High Ground. Listen here: newbooksnetwork.com/seeking-…

Liberal arts colleges have a duty to be custodians of history, philosophy, and culture of the spaces they inhabit. Chasing national rankings divorces colleges from a local mission they have even as they teach timeless things.