PanLos Angeles Review of Books...Cotton sets aside policy questions to talk about rituals and the feelings they inspire, giving voice to some of the conservative movement’s most cherished sentiments. He lifts a veil to expose not only how that movement thinks but also how it feels, not only its self-interested rationality but also its special styles of tenderness and desire ... Sacred Duty is a pretty bad book, thin on research and thick with platitudes, but it does reinforce a truth about the emotional side of politics in the United States of America: our low regard for real, grown-up, civilian life, with all its sins and struggles, can be accompanied, and covered up, by some sweet feelings about innocents and martyrs.
