Defending boyhood : how building forts, reading stories, playing ball, and praying to God can change the world

Western civilization has no more eloquent defender than Anthony Esolen, a man who has counted the cost, and paid it, of leading the way in that defense. Following on his compelling prior volume, Defending Marriage: Twelve Arguments for Sanity , Professor Esolen returns, this time in defense of boys and an experience of boyhood that is on the wane, if not extinguished in many quarters of the modern worldand to illuminate the threats our precious sons face from harridans, harpies, and all purveyors and promoters of political correctness and of the misguided and ultimately doomed-though not before it has done much mischief-project of blurring the distinctions between boys and girls. Drawing on his own, in many ways all-American boyhood, Esolen, at times wistfully, at times, playfully, and at times propheticallyin the literal sense of employing the thunder of an Old Testament prophet, details what a good boyhood once was and what it can be again. He does so in chapters inspiringly titled: The Arena to Enter Brothers to Gather Mountains to Climb The Man to Follow Work to Do Songs to Sing Enemies to Slay Life to Give Anthony Esolen prescribes a return to sanity to an insane world. He may not be able to change the world, but enter into the world of boyhood with him and he just might change you and the lives of the boys you love. "Western civilization has no more eloquent defender than Anthony Esolen. he has taken up its mantle and been persecuted for doing so. More than most, Esolen knows the vital importance that its foundational principles still hold today. If we hope to regain today's culture, we must be reminded of the truths that too many have forgotten. Following on his compelling prior volume Defending Marriage, Esolen returns, this time in defense of boys and an experience of boyhood that is on the wane, if not extinguished, in many quarters of the modern world. He masterfully illuminates the threats our precious sons face from the purveyors and promoters of political correctness, too often hiding in plain sight. And he tackles head-on the misguided and ultimately doomed--though not before it has done much mischief--project of blurring the distinctions between boys and girls. Drawing on his own in many ways all-American boyhood, Esolen, at times wistfully, at times playfully, and at times prophetically--in the literal sense of employing the thunder of an Old Testament prophet--details what a good boyhood once was and what it can be again." --Dust jacket flap