Ralph Lerner is a man of rare learning, biting wit, and deep thought. His virtues are well known to generations of students and colleagues at the University of Chicago, although he is not as prominent in the wider world as he deserves to be. The publication of this book should induce many more readers to experience Lerner’s virtues for themselves.

Naïve Readings‘ subtitle is characteristically Lernerian, for it induces one to ask what a reveille has in common with the work’s close and careful exegeses of eight rhetorical masters: three American statesmen (Franklin, Jefferson, Lincoln), three modern authors (Bacon, Gibbon, Tocqueville), and two Jewish thinkers (Halevi, Maimonides). A reveille is a wake-up call—loud, not infrequently discordant, and often unwelcome. Lerner’s studies are subtle, melodic, and most welcome, the work of a gifted and often understated stylist. But they are emphatically wake-up calls for an age that has been taught the gospel of speed. Lerner teaches the virtue of patience: stop, slow down, and (especially) reflect.