New Englander Orestes Brownson was, above all else, a man of "-isms." In his long career as writer and editor, his religious beliefs changed frequently, taking him from Congregationalism and Presbyterianism to Universalism, Unitarianism, Transcendentalism, and, finally, Roman Catholicism. His writing and editing, which ranged widely over theology, philosophy, politics, sociology, economics, and literary criticism, brought his intellect to bear on such farranging "-isms" as deism, Hobbism and agnosticism, sansculottism and Chartism, Jacobinism, Nativism, and know-nothingism. His was a life of the intellect, and his concern was not with individuals or with things, but with large ideas, such as libertarianism vs. authoritarianism, spiritualism vs. temporalism, utopian socialism vs. capitalism, and political absolutism vs. political pluralism. How he dealt with all these "-isms" was most prominently displayed in two quarterly reviews he edited and published, the Boston Quarterly Review (1838-1842) and Brownson's Quarterly Review (1844-1864, 1873-1875), and in his...