Ian Lindquist

All political conduct in a republic depends on a common reverence for the forms and norms and procedures of public life—including the institution of public assembly. Where disrespect or disregard for the form of political life exists, fundamental breakdown is likely to follow.

A new book details how the Victorians—led by the Tractarians of Oxford and the Ecclesiologists of Cambridge—sought to reintroduce symbolism in churches and to teach churchgoers to “read” a church building like a book.

Debates about funding, technology, regulations, and other topics often gloss over the single most important aspect of American education policy: teachers.

In his new book, Scott Adams demonstrates not only that President Trump strategically made his case to voters, but that he is a uniquely talented persuader.

Despite its aggressive march forward, populism’s nature and place within American politics has been opaque. Is our current “populist surge” damaging to the American republic or a healthy assertion of sovereignty? Why has the populist response occurred precisely at this moment? What are the factors that have led to it? Will the populist moment continue? Vox Populi: The Perils and Promises of Populism, edited by Roger Kimball, examines these questions.

Bryan Caplan’s The Case Against Education lays the groundwork for readers to think anew about education, what it does and ought to do, what place it holds and ought to hold in American society.

America made each man the guardian of his neighbor’s strangeness and thereby turned strangers into neighbors without destroying or whitewashing what makes each man strange to another. This was a new solution to one of the oldest, most fundamental political challenges in man’s history and the heart of American exceptionalism.

Knowledge of the constitutional principles of America is important for students. But the ability to engage in rational public discourse that addresses questions pertinent to the life of the republic is even more so.