Against the New Deal

Against the New Deal

New Deal Rebels: An Anthology of Critics of the New Deal Edited by Amity Shlaes. American Institute for Economic Research, 2023. Paperback, 376 pages, $18. Reviewed by Chuck Chalberg. From the vantage point of roughly seven decades of depression-less prosperity, Amity...
Draining the Swamp

Draining the Swamp

You Report to Me: Accountability for the Failing Administrative State  By David Bernhardt.  Encounter Books, 2023.  Hardcover, 272 pages, $29.99. Reviewed by Chuck Chalberg. In recent years the term “administrative state” has become part of our common parlance. The...
Inside the Split Mind of George Kennan

Inside the Split Mind of George Kennan

Kennan: A Life Between Worlds By Frank Costigliola. Princeton University Press, 2023.  Hardcover, 648 pages, $39.95. Reviewed by John C. Chalberg. Biographies of George Frost Kennan can have tales of their own. Or so concludes Kennan’s most recent biographer,...
A Very American Historian

A Very American Historian

C. Vann Woodward: America’s Historian By James C. Cobb.  University of North Carolina Press, 2022. Hardcover, 504 pages, $37.50. Reviewed by John C. Chalberg. Should C. Vann Woodward be regarded as America’s historian? Given his career and this biography, a more...
Why America’s Foreign Policy Needs John Quincy Adams 

Why America’s Foreign Policy Needs John Quincy Adams 

America’s Rise and Fall among Nations: Lessons in Statecraft from John Quincy Adams By Angelo M. Codevilla. Encounter Books, 2022.  Hardcover, $30.99, 288 pages. Reviewed by John C. Chalberg. Angelo Codevilla is no longer with us, but his erudite wisdom and earthy wit...