The Water Dipper

Bartering, Caregiving, and a Failed State

“The Great Stagnation—or Decline and Fall?” Patrick Deneen reviews Ross Douthat’s latest book with the help of Henry Adams and suggests our society is...

Science, Police, and Pigs

“The Intellectual Vocation.” Josh Hochschild reviews three recent books—by Scott Newstok, Zena Hitz, and Alan Jacobs—on liberal education: All three books, by testifying to fruitful...

Poetry, Localism, and Postliberal Epistemology

“Verse Lines When the Streets Are on Fire.” James Matthew Wilson offers a stirring defense of poetry in a season of chaos: “Disease, disorder,...

Left Conservatism, Public Lands, and Flannery O’Connor

As I try to do each year, I’ll be taking a break from the internet for a couple of weeks. FPR will continue publishing...

Cooperatives, Lasch’s Prescience, and Political Wisdom

I enjoyed some time off email and social media this past month, but I'm ready to resume these Water Dipper posts. I also want...

Tech Monopolies, Church Forests, and Publish and Perish

“Closing Time: We’re All Counting Bodies.” Clare Coffey reviews two recent books that diagnose American rot: “Who is in any serious doubt that the...

Hidden Wound, Living Bridges, and Local Food Processors

“What is Happening at Spring Arbor University?” I was informed this past week that this year will be my last at Spring Arbor University....

Serious Fun, Supernatural Justice, and a Wise Bald Eagle

“Reconsidering the Statesmanship of Abraham Lincoln.” Allen Guelzo reviews—and highly commends—Jon Schaff’s Abraham Lincoln’s Statesmanship: “The reader will come to the book’s end wishing that...

Salmon, American Chicken, and Scrutopia

“‘The Fish Rots from the Head’: How a Salmon Crisis Stoked Russian Protests.” Anton Troianovski traces the complex politics in an eastern Russian region...

Melville, G.D.P. Fetish, and Sheep Shearing

“The Things I Tell Myself When I’m Writing About Nature.” In this “not-too-serious and also quite serious list that is entirely non-prescriptive, and is...