Political vicissitudes aside, with or without a conservative administration, whether or not America is engaged in war, or regardless of who next holds the majority either in Congress or the Court, the United States as a whole (as the infamous red and blue map made unforgettably clear) has boldly, unabashedly moved Right. But the question remains: Why? How did a movement that appeared so sidelined and embattled only a generation ago emerge as such a strong, influential, and enduring united front?

In Why I Turned Right, eminent and rising conservatives -- at odds themselves...

In this magisterial work, leading cultural critic Mary Eberstadt delivers a powerful new theory about the decline of religion in the Western world. The conventional wisdom is that the West first experienced religious decline, followed by the decline of the family. Eberstadt turns this standard account on its head. Marshalling an impressive array of research, from fascinating historical data on family decline in pre-Revolutionary France to contemporary popular culture both in the United States and Europe, Eberstadt shows that the reverse has also been true: the undermining of the family has...