Recent Writings
1968 IS SO OVER
In 1883, speaking not as a novelist but as a bystander describing a terrible scene of carnage, Leo Tolstoy observed of what he documented: “We cannot pretend that we do not know this. We are not ostriches, and we cannot believe that if we do not look, there will not...
Mary Eberstadt Replies to Furman University on Campus Protest
Regarding Furman University President Elizabeth Davis’s response (Letters, March 31) to my op-ed “You Can’t Cancel Me, I Quit” (March 27): Of course there are civil, intellectually engaged students at Furman University—and everywhere else. Just this week I taught a...
You Can’t Cancel Me, I Quit
In the spring of 2014—in retrospect, the dress rehearsal for cancel culture—some commencement speakers around the country were disinvited or withdrew themselves from consideration owing to left-wing protests. I wasn’t among them. A few faculty members at Seton Hall...
Giving New Heart to the Wounded
Adam and Eve after the Pill, Revisited, closes a body of work that’s occupied a lot of my attention for the past fifteen years. I don’t mean that the last word has been said – far from it. New voices are emerging, including from non-religious circles, that are also...
Secularization, Revisited
Why there’s hope for faith. Even as Christians everywhere rejoice in the impending holiday, the faith itself faces sober times. This is especially true across nations of the West. Consider a subject that sounds parochial but amounts to a civilizational bellwether: the...
Recent Media
In Depth with Mary Eberstadt
Author and essayist Mary Eberstadt joins Book TV to talk and take calls about religious freedom, the sexual revolution in America, and more. Her books include How the West Really Lost God and Adam and Eve After the Pill, Revisited.
Mary Eberstadt sifts through the Sexual Revolution’s wreckage—and finds hope
Since the 2012 release of her first book on the Sexual Revolution, Mary Eberstadt has engaged in what she considers an often thankless task—honoring the suffering of those who have been victimized by the massive changes that have rocked society since the 1960s. The...
Con un poco di pillola, l’Occidente va jui
Distruzione delle famiglie, aumento degli aborti, impennata delle aggressioni sessuali nei confronti delle donne, incremento della povertà e del disagio sociale, anche violento: tutto parte dalla pillola. Lo aveva spiegato con chiarezza Mary Eberstadt, saggista e...
After the Pill: A Conversation with Mary Eberstadt
The pill has rocked our society to its core: but have we fully examined all its repercussions? Influential author and essayist Mary Eberstadt thinks we've only scratched the surface; in her most recent book, Adam and Eve after the Pill, Revisited (Ignatius Press,...
A Conversation with Mary Eberstadt
On May 18, Mary Eberstadt began the conversation by articulating that despite advancements of post-1960s feminism and widespread access to contraception, Western women are decidedly less happy. She and AEI’s Robert Doar discussed how secular faith, the lack of church...
“Truth may be unwanted, inconvenient, resented, mocked in all the best places—even harassed, suppressed, and forced underground. But that does not make it anything other than truth.”
Released on ~ February 5th, 2023
Adam and Eve after the Pill, Revisited
Celebrated author Mary Eberstadt continues her ground-breaking examination of the legacy of the sexual revolution. The book’s predecessor, Adam and Eve after the Pill (2012), dissected the revolution’s microcosmic fallout via its empirical effects on the lives of men, women, and children. This follow-on book investigates the revolution’s macrocosmic transformations in three spheres: society, politics, and Christianity. It also includes an analysis of the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision that overturned Roe v. Wade.
With unflinching logic, Eberstadt summarizes the toll on Western society of today’s fractured homes, feral children, and social isolates. Empathetic yet precise, she connects the dots between shrinking, broken families and rising sexual confusion, seen most recently in transgenderism and related phenomena. The book also traces the dissolution of the home to signature developments in Western politics, especially the increase in acrimony, polarization, street violence, and identity politics. The result is an indictment of the turn taken by much of the world following the post-1960s embrace of contraception and the stigmatization of traditional morality.
The book’s section on the revolution’s infiltration of the churches is must-reading for anyone concerned about the fate of Western Christianity. In a moment when millions wonder whether the Catholic Church will retreat from age-old moral teachings, this book demands to be put at the center of discussion.
Adam and Eve after the Pill, Revisited is both an indispensable blueprint for today’s emerging revisionism, and a manifesto for a more humane order to come.
Praise for Adam and Eve after the Pill, Revisited
“Mary Eberstadt is our most astute commentator on the vast human costs of the sexual revolution. Adam and Eve After the Pill, Revisited is essential reading for anyone who wants to navigate out of the wreckage of our present age.”
R. R. Reno, Editor, First Things
“Adam and Eve After the Pill, Revisited is a profound series of reflections on the carnage that the sexual revolution has wrought. It’s a wake-up call to everyone—particularly the Church—to be bold in our witness to the truth about human sexuality, as there are human costs to getting human nature wrong.”
Ryan Anderson, Ph.D., President, Ethics and Public Policy Center; Author, When Harry Became Sally: Responding to the Transgender Moment
“Mary Eberstadt’s cultural analysis is insightful, serious, and sane—an example of the prophetic discernment and courage to which God calls all believers. This book matters for everyone who cares about human flourishing, loving the marginalized, and proclaiming the Christian Gospel.”
J. D. Flynn, Editor-in-Chief, The Pillar
“As applied to this book, the words ‘bracing’ and ‘unafraid’ are massive understatements—especially in this moment when reason itself has lost so many friends, and politics, cultural and intellectual trends insist that family disintegration is not the crisis it most certainly is. In her literate, passionate, hard-hitting book, chock full of empirical and theological erudition, Mary Eberstadt sets up the debate we so badly need in the United States.”
Helen Alvaré, Robert A. Levy Professor of Law & Liberty, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University
“Mary Eberstadt has given us a great resource to help us not only navigate through this sea of confusion and insanity, but guide the Barque of Peter to once again be a light in the darkness.”
Teresa Tomeo, Author, Extreme Makeover: Women Transformed by Christ, Not Conformed to the Culture
“This brilliant and courageous book offers both a surgically precise dissection of the social, cultural, religious, and political effects of the sexual revolution and a powerful plea for a compassionate Christian response to the wreckage the revolution has wrought. Anyone who cares about the human future should read, mark, inwardly digest—and then act upon—Mary Eberstadt’s summons to a nobler conception of our nature and destiny.”
George Weigel, Author, The Fragility of Order and The Next Pope
“Mary Eberstadt notices disquieting social trends well ahead of the rest of us, uncovering their often paradoxical causes with the acuity of a surgeon, the dexterity of an artist, and the wisdom of a sage. She makes a penetrating—and heartfelt—appeal to the Church and the world once again.”
Erika Bachiochi, Author, The Rights of Women: Reclaiming a Lost Vision
Other Books
Primal Screams
“Mary Eberstadt proves, yet again, that she is one of America’s most insightful — as well as compassionate — analysts.” –George Weigel
Adam and Eve After the Pill
The Last Homily
How the West Really Lost God
It’s Dangerous to Believe
“A tour de force, essential reading.” – Jonathan Last, The Weekly Standard
Home-Alone America
