About

Will Morrisey Reviews

We all want to know, a knowledgeable man once wrote. While reserving our own judgment, we’ve all needed help in satisfying that desire. Socrates listened and talked; if human beings have free will, even the omniscient God of the Bible may wonder, “What will My people think of, next?” He keeps an eye on them. They differ from Him (among other ways) in needing to supplement their observations with dialogue, to consider the many, often contradictory opinions that their fellow human beings voice.

Hence the benefit of reading books and writing about them. In this website I have collected book reviews and other commentaries that I’ve written. The collection may develop into a sort of book in its own right. The purpose of doing so is to share thoughts on thinkers in order to clarify my own thinking and to draw your attention to the thoughts I’ve found in some of the books I’ve read.

Will Morrisey

For many years a resident of Rumson, New Jersey, Will Morrisey graduated from the local public schools before receiving an A. B. in English and political science from Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio. He earned a Master of Arts in Liberal Studies from the New School for Social Research in New York City; his Ph. D in political science is also from the New School.

He served on the Rumson Planning Board, the Board of Health, and the Shade Tree Commission; he also edited the municipal newsletter from 1979 to 2000. In the 1980s he worked as an aide to New Jersey State Senator S. Thomas Gagliano. The Monmouth County Board of Chosen Freeholders appointed him as a member, and then Executive Director of the county Historical Commission.

From 2000 to 2015 he taught in the Politics Department at Hillsdale College in Hillsdale, Michigan. At the time of his retirement he held the William and Patricia LaMothe Chair in the United States Constitution.

He has published eight books and has contributed articles to several collections. His articles and book reviews have appeared in the New York Times, the Jerusalem Post, the Washington Times, the American Political Science Review, Philosophy and Literature, The New Criterion, Social Science and Modern Society, The Political Science Reviewer, The St. John’s Review, Perspectives on Political Science, Law and Liberty, and in Interpretation: A Journal of Political Philosophy, where he has served as an assistant editor since 1979.