The Age of Austerity: How Scarcity Will Remake American PoliticsBy Thomas Byrne Edsall(Doubleday, 256 pages, $24.95)  Thomas Edsall’s new book on the coming “age of austerity” is an example of why it will not be a moment too soon for…

Jacques Barzun: Portrait of a Mind By Michael Murray (Frederic C. Beil, 302 pages, $26.95) Jacques Barzun, still going strong at 105, wrote recently of a study of his friend Lionel Trilling that the important thing about a critic was…

Proud to be Right: Voices of the Next Conservative Generation. Edited by Jonah Goldberg (Harper, 242 pages, $15.99) For each conservative generation, its own anthology. The founding generation of conservatives had Did You Ever See a Dream Walking?, William F. Buckley’s…