Readers’ Choice

The Sudden Death of the African Church

D. P. CURTIN

There are instances in which a civilization vanishes, and all that is left is a layer of ash. This is what happened to Roman North Africa, a high civilization, distinctive but immersed in the broader Roman world. The heartbeat of this civilization, the African Church, has no living descendant.

Breaking the Mind

EDWARD FESER

James K. A. Smith’s latest book came after he suffered through a period of profound depression, alleviated only by the writings of the great Christian mystics. Shockingly, given Smith’s prominence as a Christian thinker, the book’s philosophical content is muddleheaded where it isn’t simply banal.

A Rudderless Odyssey

ANATOLY GRABLEVSKY

Though there is much to like about Christopher Nolan’s Odyssey, it reduces Homer’s andra polytropos to a strangely one-note brooding and shell-shocked veteran.

The Enemy Within

NATHAN PINKOSKI

The Information State is one of the most important books of the twenty-first century. In a virtuoso performance, Jacob Siegel harmonizes political theory, investigative journalism, and contemporary history to demonstrate how Americans are now governed.

The Unfashionable Faith of Ann Widdecombe

JOSEPH SHAW

Ann Widdecombe, a prominent conservative U.K. politcian, was killed in her home on July 9. She converted to Anglicanism in her thirties, and to Catholicism in 1993, and she spent her long political career defending human life and all sorts of causes that she considered just.