Christian McNamara
Christian McNamara is a researcher and lecturer at the Yale School of Management and has also worked as an attorney, social sector consultant, and executive director of a small youth development non-profit. He is a graduate of the University of Notre Dame and Harvard Law School. Christian lives with his wife and two children in Hamden, CT.
Articles by Christian McNamara
The Smallest of Seeds: A Review of Fragile Neighborhoods
For Kaplan, when comparing two countries and asking why one has succeeded where the other has failed, what matters most is not national policies but “societal dynamics—the strength of the…
Is the Internet to Blame for the Decline of Literary Fiction? Possibly, But Maybe Not in the Way That We Think
It is not solely (or perhaps even primarily) about there being more hours of work and therefore less time for reading. It is about the possibility of work hovering over…
When Work Disappears: A Review of The Other Side of Prospect
Certainly there is a need for a national conversation and national solutions... But reading The Other Side of Prospect, one is left with the sense that the ultimate authors of…
Virtue Signaling and Cheap Grace
Changing the phrase “field work” to “practicum” is, without more comprehensive action, a perfect illustration of cheap grace. It costs USC nothing more than some online eye-rolling to do.
Every Town has a Story Worth Saving: A Review of Hello, Bookstore
Establishments like The Bookstore, when at their best, are not exclusively or perhaps even primarily in the business of providing people with printed texts. They are places in which proprietors…
Localism and the War on Drugs: A Review of The Least of Us
For Quinones, the twin opioid and meth epidemics have their origins in the destruction of community. The decline of local institutions creates a vacuum of isolation and hopelessness in which…
We Should All Stop Talking About Harvard So Much
It is not because I bear Harvard any ill will that I wish we could all just shut up about it already. Rather, I am concerned that our national obsession…
The Hidden Life of Ignatius J. Reilly
John Kennedy Toole denies Ignatius such a happy ending, subverting the traditional redemption narrative. In so doing, he arguably gives us a better portrait of what life actually tends to…
The Missed Opportunity of “Rugged Individualism”
The tragedy of the hold Hoover’s rugged individualism continues to have on the American psyche in our increasingly atomized age is that his formulation risks presenting a false dichotomy between…
Rock the Block
It is a cloudless July day in Connecticut—the kind of day that keeps people rooted in this place despite its long winters and high taxes. From houses up and down the…