Sleepwalking Into Wokeness

“A feast of a book, filled with sparkling prose, usable descriptive phrases, and sharp judgments”

- Steven F. Hayward, Claremont Review of Books

Conservative writers have always claimed to defend the high literary tradition, at once comic and wise, that runs from G. K. Chesterton through Evelyn Waugh to Kingsley Amis. But John O’Sullivan is probably the only one today who actually belongs to it.- Christopher Caldwell, journalist and author most recently of The Age of Entitlement: America Since the SixtiesJohn O’Sullivan is erudite without pedantry and limpid without oversimplifcation. He has a perfect eye for an amusing and enlightening anecdote. His judgment is sound and his moral outlook vigorous. His essays are what George Orwell thought political writing should be: an art form.- Theodore Dalrymple, cultural critic and author most recently of The Wheelchair and Other EssaysJohn O’Sullivan, a fine historian as well as a brilliant journalist, has firm principles but an open mind, is exceptionally well-read yet curious about even the most upsetting and unexpected developments that influence social change, and his acute analyses of present and past bring to every subject a humane outlook and a keen sense of the ridiculous. They’re all in this book.

- Ruth Dudley Edwards, historian and journalist, author most recently of The Seven: The Lives and Legacies of the Founding Fathers of the Irish Republic

Writers and journalists often relish the opportunity to defend unpopular causes, and John O’Sullivan has certainly been willing to do that when necessity has dictated. But he has also proved himself willing to do something far less venerated among writers and journalists but today increasingly necessary: which is to defend popular causes. Many of the ideas and people he has defended do not often find themselves with such sophisticated defenders on their side. But that is what they have often had in the form of John O’Sullivan.- Douglas Murray, journalist and author most recently of The War on the West