The vociferous reaction from the usual suspects to the proposed executive order, drafted this past February by the non-profit National Civic Art Society, that the federal government build “with special regard for the classical architectural style” was unsurprising. Opponents claimed that the proposal was “weaponizing” classical architecture and was “borderline totalitarian.” The New Republic wrote that the move “would stifle architecture and violate the free thought and artistic expression that are essential to a democracy.” But of course, to these skeptics, architects should be free to impose their “vision” on a public space at taxpayers’ expense. Whatever the merits of the proposal, it is hard not to see in the opposition a dedication to a certain view of aesthetics, one that caricatures the notion of objectively beautiful public buildings as a tool of oppression or political tyranny, or more simply a postmodern position that “impl[ies] the complete rejection of beauty in any positive sense,” as Dana Gioia describes it in a foreword to one of the volumes reviewed here.1 But having the ability to recognize what is good or beautiful is central to a culture, something the West is in danger of losing completely.

In his monumental two-volume Aesthetics, the German philosopher Dietrich von Hildebrand (1889–1977) rejects the notion that beauty is unimportant to nurturing civilization or is somehow reserved only for the elite or privileged: “One should not make the mistake of assuming that because many people today apparently lack any sensitivity to beauty, beauty