Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) has written a book that is in a word, wonderful. As the title suggests, it is directed at the men of today, whom he seeks to rouse from their leftist-induced apathy and assume the masculine roles of leadership, strength, virtue, and purpose.

He begins by presenting the case for a renewal of masculinity as ordained by the God of the Bible, starting with our first father, Adam. God charged Adam with caring for the Garden of Eden; he was “to work it,” and “keep it;” including naming the animals, and to “be fruitful and multiply.” In other words, Adam had a mission from God, as does each man starting with Adam on down to those living today.

Throughout the book, Hawley incorporates personal stories about his life. We meet his grandparents, his parents, his uncle who owns and operates a concrete company in Arkansas, his wife and young children. The men in his life all worked hard, practiced the Christian faith, cared for their families, and while not perfect, set a good example for others. We read about the young men he met during his days as a coach, as a college law professor, some of whom had no sense of purpose in their lives because they were discouraged by today’s negative view of men and manhood.

One of the most poignant stories in the book involves the death of Hawley’s close childhood friend, who had every indication of a bright future, but who nonetheless committed suicide at the age of 22. The loss profoundly impacted Hawley’s life. “His death was shattering in many ways, and among the things it destroyed in my life was any illusion that all was well with the world,” he writes. “There is a darkness in the world that resists what is good and strains to destroy it. There is a darkness within us. This is the reality each man must face. This is his battleground.”

Throughout the book, Hawley shows how the Bible says man must act in order “to realize what he could be” and how he “must conform his character to God’s purposes for his life.” This requires sacrifice and commitment to the welfare of others; namely, a wife and family; concepts the modern world despises and rejects. In fact, the world follows a very different story; one that culminates in contemporary liberalism but actually dates back to the ancient Greek philosopher, Epicurus.

Hawley writes that Epicurus taught that the universe is “neither planned nor orderly,” but that it is entirely random and without purpose. Epicurus questioned the existence of “the gods,” and believed “mankind should focus on what really matters, pleasure and happiness.”

The author uses the Epicurean philosophy to provide contrast to the will of God for mankind as expressed in Genesis, and applies Epicurus’s ideas to the state of the world today. He shows how this ancient philosophy evolved through historical players such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau and the French Revolution to Marx and the cultural Marxists of the 1960s, who determined that masculinity was “just another oppressive social system”; a ‘’patriarchy that imposed male dominance through the rules of public discourse (which men allegedly set), social expectations (which men allegedly controlled), and family traditions (like male leadership in the home), all enforced by domestic abuse and other violence.”

“Experts,” including the American Psychological Association, have increasingly decried traditional manhood as, “on the whole, harmful.” Hawley writes that, according to these leftists: “To be a man is, of itself, to contribute to the supposed tyranny of the social order. It is to be trash. An entire generation of cultural Marxists and other liberals have drummed this theme into the heads of anyone who will listen.... The lesson has been rehashed and recycled for decades by the media, Hollywood, and various politicians. You will find it now even in elementary schools, where proposed curricula teach the youngest children that masculinity is shameful and oppressive. It has become the conventional wisdom of our Epicurean age: manhood is toxic.”

But as Hawley’s book makes clear, the God of the Bible says the opposite: He made men for good and meant for them to lead. God gave man dominion over the earth, which directly contradicts today’s pagan notion of environmentalism and “climate change.” The author points out that the climate change fanatics “equate human production with despoliation, the use of the earth’s resources with environmental rape.” For them, apocalyptic environmentalism has replaced Judeo-Christianity as the new religion.

Finally, the author sums up the dire circumstances in the world today quite succinctly by noting that ultimately, modern liberalism creates victimhood, thus relieving men of responsibility for their actions. “Being a victim gives him the right to demand society do something for him, rather than the other way around” he writes. “It assures him society owes him; victim status excuses his failures.... It also gives him a ‘job’ of sorts; the right to be an activist and demand that government fork over what he is ‘owed’ by taking it from his alleged oppressors.”

While Hawley allows that this scenario may offer a type of “meaning” to a life otherwise without meaning, it is “a pathetic and shallow meaning, built on complaining of one’s own incompetence.”

But Manhood presents an entirely opposite view of how men should conduct their lives. While the author intersperses sacred Scripture throughout the book, he is not preachy, and the ultimate picture he paints of what life and our republic could be if inhabited by more virtuous men will make readers longing for it to be so. He demonstrates again and again what it means to be a man: “a husband, a father, a warrior and builder, a priest and a king.”

In sum, writes Hawley, “Every man can be a man of peace, a man of order.... He can choose self-discipline and strive for self-command. He can commit himself to a woman for a lifetime and put her interests ahead of his. He can be a father who will love his children and devote himself to them. He can work with industry and build something honorable. And America needs men who will do these things. In this age of fatherlessness and self-absorption and irresponsibility, America needs men who will start families and build homes and leave legacies of character that will span generations.”

This reviewer believes both men and women will benefit from reading Senator Hawley’s inspirational work. While the message is directed at men, women can use it to help the men in their lives reach their potential, be they husbands, sons, or grandsons. Women have certainly played a role in the destruction of traditional manhood, and they can do much to help restore it. Our country and our future depend on it.

To read the entire book, go to Amazon.com to order!

The Education Reporter Book Review is a project of America’s Future, Inc. To find out more about America’s Future, visit AmericasFuture.net.

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