Reviews When Past Is Prologue Francesca Murphy Out of the Ashes: Rebuilding American Culture By Anthony Esolen (Regnery, 2017) A nthony Esolen is a literary scholar who has translated Dante's Divine Comedy and written popular books criticizing contemporary manners and mores. As befits a literary scholar, his critique has focused on the corrosive effects of modern society on the imaginative and affective lives of the young. Out of the Ashes is about failures in educating and cultivating girls and boys (or "lads," as Esolen tends to call them). The principal virtue of this book is that the men and women who are already rebuilding the culture will feel validated in their work. Husbands and wives who have scrimped so the father can work while the mother creates a nest and homeschools the children will particularly enjoy this book. The many conservative religious families who have for decades made education the focus of their lives will take a justified pleasure in the tongue-lashing the author gives to the kind of upbringing that produces male pornography addicts and "whores" (as Esolen tends to call poorly brought-up girls). The author writes for an audience he knows, and it is clear from his rhetoric and arguments that this is not a work of apologetics modernagejournal.com 131http://www.modernagejournal.com