The Book of Man

By William J. Bennett, thomasnelson.com.

The Book of Man is a great book insofar as the collator and commenter keeps out the way and lets Plato, Milton, Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and other great men speak. Essentially a selection from the western canon, The Book of Man shows that the canon is the work of male genius.

That should be the main scope of the book: To show men that they have something to be proud of - themselves. Men are great achievers, and have philosophized about the great mysteries of life. Musings selected from the original wordsmiths deal with war, work, sports, and politics. They call men to the excellence that for eons defined male actions and male-female behavior.

Nowadays, these virtues are laughed at by feminists and their matriarchy, which encourages men to act boorishly, then complains when men act boorishly. Behind Bennett's selections is his call to men to act in the old way, to be responsible family leaders and members. Yet he is doing a disservice to males because the culture has clearly rejected men, masculinity, and fatherhood. Marriage is dangerous for men, as a taste in family court will show any sucker. Bennett, as with his other writings, is behind the times and woefully indifferent to the lot of men today, who are blamed for all the world's ills even while they are accused of taking advantage of women.

What would truly benefit readers would be authors who understood that men are in deep trouble today because of the mass neurosis, feminism.