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Robert H. Bork’s Slouching Towards Gomorrah (Regan Books/HarperCollins, 382 pages, $ 25) has an air of authority that borders on the magisterial. The legal scholar, former appealscourt judge, and defeated nominee for the United States Supreme Court has written a work of intellectual history and social criticism that, in fewer than 350 pages, means to offer a comprehensive account of the failure of modern liberalism (the book’s subtitle is Modern Liberalism and American Decline). It is easy to imagine such an ambitious project ending in superficiality, eccentricity, or triviality. Slouching Towards Gomorrah does not.

On the contrary, the book is steeped in serious thought about Modern Times. The prose is engaging. But the manner is that of the serious if not fusty law professor scouring casebooks for illuminating precedents — in this case meticulously selecting source material on the basis of the quality and clarity of the analysis that has gone before.

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