This is why I like Damian Thompson

Fr. Richard John Neuhaus liked to say the first thing about politics is that is not the first thing. Over the course of his life, Fr. Neuhaus was an active player in American politics, but he always tried to keep it in its proper place: In this understanding, it is

And now we have John's review/reflection on just how the Western Roman Empire became capable of falling. As John was keenly interested in cyclical theories of history, it should come as no surprise that John's analysis is a combination of decreasing state capacity occurring in

One of the things I enjoyed the most about John J. Reilly's book reviews is that he was not only a gifted summarizer, able to quickly sum up the key points of a book, he was knowledgeable enough to critique and expand upon those key points in interesting