When political debates devolve, as they often do these days, into a contest between big-government progressivism and natural rights individualism, Americans tend to appeal to the “self-evident” truths inscribed in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. But Peter Lawler and Richard Reinsch remind us that these truths understood in the abstract are untethered from a prior, unwritten constitution presupposed by the Framers—one found in culture, customs, traditions, experiences, and beliefs. A Constitution in Full is Lawler and Reinsch’s attempt to return this critical context to US constitutionalism—to recover a political sense of individualism in relation to country, family, religious community, and nature. Power, the authors suggest, is a public trust, not a form of obedience to either majoritarian suppression of particular liberties or the endless rights-claims lodged by autonomous individuals against society. Instead, power is ordered to the demands of a shared political enterprise that emerges from man’s social nature. Building on political insights from Alexis de Tocqueville, Orestes Brownson, John Courtney Murray, and others Lawler and Reinsch seek to restore the relational person—the individual grounded in family, work, faith, and community—to a central place in our understanding of republican constitutionalism. Their work promotes the ongoing development of constitutional self-government rooted in our historical, legal, and religious foundations. The shared middle-class values that once united almost all Americans as well as any confidence in democratic deliberation or political liberty are rapidly atrophying. This book aims to rebuild this confidence by helping us think seriously about the complex interplay between political and economic liberties and the relational life of creatures and citizens.

A Constitution in Full: Recovering the Unwritten Foundation of American Liberty (American Political Thought)

Politics & Social Sciences

Lawler, Peter Augustine

Reinsch II, Richard M.

Philosophy

University Press of Kansas

What Chambers Can Teach Us
 Whittaker Chambers is rightly remembered for his pivotal role in the electrifying Alger Hiss spy case. But as Richard Reinsch reminds us in the latest volume in ISI Books’ acclaimed Library of Modern Thinkers, Chambers was more than just a government informant; he was a profoundly important thinker who grappled with the nature of modern man’s predicaments.
 Whittaker Chambers: The Spirit of a Counterrevolutionary shows that Chambers’s thought posed—and still poses—a challenge to American conservatism and its typical focus on markets and small government. In his journalism, essays, personal correspondence with the likes of William F. Buckley Jr., and landmark autobiographical tome Witness, Chambers engaged more broadly, analyzing the fundamental question of who man is and the classical and spiritual foundations of civilization.
 Defying conventional thinking, Reinsch argues that the former Communist spy may have been more right than wrong when he predicted that the West would lose the Cold War. While the Soviets’ Communist system did of course collapse, the spiritual and philosophical sickness that Chambers identified, Reinsch suggests, has not been cured.
WHAT THEY'RE SAYING
“Reinsch points to Chambers’ deep devotion to the role of G-d in the war between Communism and freedom…. Hopefully my readers will take the opportunity to read Richard Reinsch’s work on Chambers and to further their research by reading Chambers’ actual works. One thing I can assure you ,you will come to better understand current world and domestic events today by reading and learning from Chambers life’s experiences and the views he came to espouse.” —The Jewish Star 
"Richard Reinsch's book made me go back and read Witness for the first time." —The New Criterion
“Eloquent and engaging . . . Whittaker Chambers: The Spirit of a Counterrevolutionary is intended by Mr. Reinsch as ‘an act of recovery, one that would weave together the strands of an enduring Chambers for future reflection.’ In this he has succeeded admirably.”—Washington Times
“It’s taken over 60 years, but someone has finally written a great book about Whittaker Chambers.”—The Daily Caller
“Reinsch’s book does more than just recount the history of Chambers. . . . Reinsch argues the spiritual emptiness within the western world that worried Chambers persists.”—Politics Daily "Reinsch has crafted an important and essential book for anybody fatigued with the daily grind of hyper-partisan politics. By reintroducing conservatives to a deep thinker like Chambers, he reminds us of the limits of politics as well as the frustrating shallowness it can embody.”—Acton Institute PowerBlog “Reinsch’s brief study touches on the biographical but his real interest is in Chambers as a thinker. Drawing not just on Witness but on his subject’s journalism for Time and Life and extensive personal correspondence, including with Buckley, Reinsch reveals a Chambers who thought deeply about modernity, freedom, and the destiny of the West, which he saw as dark indeed.” —National Review “A solid merit to Reinsch’s short study is to suggest the many ways in which Chambers still speaks to us with relevance and urgency…Reinsch’s book is a thoughtful probe of Chambers thought and work…Chambers is above all a prophet of how, even in apparent victory, the West may fail in its true struggle by emulating Communism on every point…A fine study that will challenge and inform.” —The City

Whittaker Chambers: The Spirit of a Counterrevolutionary (Library of Modern Thinkers)

History

ISI Books

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Books by Reinsch II, Richard M.