A Conservative Gargoyle

Bad books are easily ignored. They may waste an unwary reader’s time, but this is a minor irritant. Really bad books, however, are noxious: they insult the intelligence of readers; they also injure the cause they avowedly seek to promote. Such a really bad book is The American Dissent.

Ostensibly, this is a scholarly examination of American conservatism in the past decade. Actually, it is little more than an uncritical summary of the National Review and various other writings by ...