SOURCE: Gewen, Barry. “A Craftsman Turned Booster.” New Leader 64, no. 3 (9 February 1981): 15-16.

In the following review, Gewen finds Ambition “ultimately diffuse, unconvincing and, worst of all, irritating.”

In the world of small literary magazines and high ideas, Joseph Epstein, editor of the American Scholar and a former associate editor of The New Leader, has made a name for himself as a sane and skillful essayist on cultural affairs. His stance is reliably temperate, his conclusions are thoughtful and well-balanced, his style is modest, crystalline and often graced with a dry wit. He eschews flashiness and attention-getting for the care of the craftsman, and his writing is gratifyingly free of special pleading. That these all too easily overlooked or underpraised virtues are to be cherished becomes clear when one reflects on how few authors and critics possess them. In an overwrought age, mere common sense may be enough to...