Peter Augustine Lawler is a rare find, and may be the most original and insightful political philosopher writing in America today. This book takes seriously the possibility that our age can meaningfully be understood as "post-modern," but concludes ultimately that what are taken to be indicators of the post-modern condition are actually artifacts of, as it were, hyper-modernity. An authentically POST-modern philosophical position would look very different from what is commonly believed. Lawler here begins to mark out a path which would lead us truly beyond modernity.

He does so, moreover, in a prose style that is direct -- readers who have slogged through the ponderous obscurity of continental European theorists will give thanks! -- but also seriously ironical. There is humor, playfulness here, but it is playfulness with a purpose.

For those enamored of Foucault, Derrida, and company, not least of interest in this book is that Lawler reveals the genuinely philosophical dimension of American thinkers. The book takes aim at Richard Rorty and ultimately finds our best philosophical guide in the reflections of the Southern novelist Walker Percy.

With surprising formulations on almost every page, a reader with an interest in things post-modern may at first be tempted to dismiss an author who says such unheard-of things. But give this book a chance. You just might have to conclude that Lawler has it right after all.

This is the first book to make sense of postmodernism
and the best introduction available to the thought of
Walker Percy--philosopher and novelist. It has become
a kind of cult classic.

This is an excellent collection for Straussians, Thomists, Tocquevillians, and the like. Great chapters by Paul Cantor, Diana Schaub, Dan Mahoney, Peter Lawler, Tom Darby, and others. They are, for the most part, easy to read and suitable for classroom use. A gem!

This book is, on the one hand, a follow-up to Lawler's previous book Postmodernism Rightly Understood (PRU): several of the men profiled in that book reappear here--Francis Fukuyama, Richard Rorty, Allan Bloom, Walker Percy, to name a few. Here, on the other hand, Lawler's emphasis is on the dangers that the coming biotechnology movement poses not just for democratic society, but for human nature itself. What saves this from being a simple Luddite tract is Lawler's ability to tie in the biotechnology movement (which has already begun with human cloning and, one could argue, in vitro fertilization) with a number of aspects of the liberal tradition, from Thomas Jefferson to the postmodern relativism of the last fifty years. This Lawler does masterfully--his critique of the liberal tradition as embodied by, e.g., Jefferson and Rorty is so well-argued that one finishes the book with the ill sensation that all is not well with modernity, to put it mildly.

Of course, modernity has produced many great boons for mankind; the question, however, is whether the modernist drive for unending progress or some higher principle should have primacy in our society. Lawler sketches out that latter option in this book, though not to the extent that he does in PRU. That his alternative to modernist self-improvement, or postmodernism rightly understood, in his words, involves a return to Thomism, i.e. Catholicism, will no doubt scare off many readers (as an unbeliever, that includes me, to an extent). But, in good Thomistic fashion, Lawler argues that one need not be a Christian to appreciate the various critiques he gives of modern liberalism--though, naturally, it helps.

I have but two criticisms of Lawler's book; one is minor, the other major. 1) His writing style, like that in PRU, is a peculiar blend of hard analysis and softer rhetoric (I agree with the other reviewers who said Lawler does not scold but tease); nevertheless, it can make for a difficult reading at times. 2) As in PRU, Lawler here relies mainly on Walker Percy's works on semiotics in order to defend the dignity of human nature. Now, I've become a big fan of Percy (Aliens in America, in fact, introduced me to Percy's oeuvre), but if one wants to defend the unique nature of man against the rather significant evidence marshalled forth by modern biology in favor of man's non-uniqueness, one should rely on more than just ol' Walker from Louisiana. This is not to say that Lawler's arguments are wrong, but the defense of human uniqueness, and hence human dignity, requires a more thorough treatment than provided in this book, which is mostly political philosophy and cultural analysis. On these latter topics, however, Lawler shines.

In spite of those criticisms, I highly recommend this book, especially for liberals; if you're anything like me, it will make you rethink a lot of your premises.

This is an extraordinary book which reminds me a bit of Allan Bloom's best-seller, "The Closing of the American Mind." The book is a startlingly original reflection on the kinds of trends in American culture (high, low, and popular) that we read about every day, and about which we all have some not very well considered opinions. But like Bloom, Peter Augustine Lawler brings to these reflections a deep learning in philosophy and political theory, so that you leave the book not only with a series of remarkable insights ("I've never thought about it that way before!") but also with an understanding of the philosophical sources of our present discontents.

"Aliens in America" ranges widely--from Richard Rorty and Martin Heidegger to David Brooks's "Bobos in Paradise," from John Courtney Murray and Thomas Jefferson to the novelist Walker Percy--but perhaps Lawler's main foil is Francis Fukuyama, who after the fall of communism made famous the idea of the "End of History," and who more recently has speculated about questions of biotechnology in "Our Post-Human Future." To my mind, at least, Lawler gets the better of Fukuyama, showing how history can never come to an end, and how there can be no post-human future, because of the ineradicable human fact of self-conscious mortality. There is something genuinely profound behind the book's joshing title and sub-title.

Like Bloom's "Closing of the American Mind," "Aliens in America" will probably be understood as some kind of conservative book. But unlike Bloom, Lawler is no wailing Jeremiah, denouncing a hundred years of intellectual history and offering secular salvation only to a chosen few. Rather, Lawler's book is filled with wit and good humour and hope; and like Tocqueville, he can see with an unprejudiced eye both what is bad and what is good about modern America.

Heartily, even fervently recommended.

Peter Lawler is an insightful observer of the human soul. Part social theorist, part political scientist, and part psychologist, Lawler helps make sense of the moral and spiritual discontents that Americans increasingly experience today. Over and against those who would biologically transform human nature in order to rid us of all disease and discomfort, Lawler shows how (and why) we can live well in a world that, at best, ambiguously fulfills our natural desires.

Simply the best collection of readings for introductory American Government courses I have used in over twenty years of college and university teaching. These readings have never failed to spark thoughtful discussions among my students.

"American Political Rhetoric" is an excellent collection of American-governing documents, judicial decisions, and speeches given by such charismatic leader as martin luther king jr, franklin delano roosevelt, william jefferson clinton, frederick douglas, abraham lincoln, and many others. The articles are partitioned into chapters concerning civil rights, foreign policy, gender rights, founding principles, judicial powers, bicameralism and the separation of powers, etc... this text is an excellent edition for any motivated citizen and should be required reading for any potential voter.

This book is essential for the library of every scholar of American constitutionalism. For those who have studied the subject, the superb selection of essays on different aspects of American political thought is enlightening. Those who are simply interested in America's founding may however be at a loss and overwhelmed by the wide range of arguments put forward in the different essays even if Gary L.Gregg did an excellent job in the introduction giving an overview to the reader of what he should expect in each essay. Thus, since all and even the American constituiton and its origins is a matter of perspective, this book can only be enjoyed after a thorough study of American political thought. For constitution freaks however it is not only useful to have, it is a real joy to browse through the essays.

There is a palpable fear that America has lost its way, and perhaps even been untrue to itself. Examples of this loss abound, from school violence to a youth culture nihilism. "Vital Remnants," a collection of essays by some of America's top scholars in history, philosophy, political science, and law, shows, with remarkable clarity, the ways in which contemporary American society has radically altered the course upon which it was originally set. To be sure, our century looks at America with a different set of assumptions than that of our ancestors. "Vital Remnants" gives us clues by which we might stay the course for the benefit of generations to come.