Reconsidering Franklin D. Roosevelt

Reconsidering Franklin D. Roosevelt

FDR: A New Political Life By David T. Beito.  Open Universe, 2025.  Paperback, 284 pages, $29.95. Reviewed by Chuck Chalberg.  Did the presidency of Herbert Hoover and the New Deal of Franklin Roosevelt actually prolong what today might be remembered as the “panic of...
From the Man Who Loved America

From the Man Who Loved America

Fighting Enemies Foreign and Domestic: The Legacy of Angelo M. Codevilla Edited by Ryan P. Williams. Encounter Books, 2025.  Hardcover, 128 pages, $24.99. Reviewed by Chuck Chalberg. If the title of this collection of essays written in memory of and tribute to the...
After the New Left: Rereading Breaking Ranks

After the New Left: Rereading Breaking Ranks

By John C. “Chuck” Chalberg. The recent death of Norman Podhoretz prompted me to return to his “political memoir,” Breaking Ranks. Published in 1979, it deserves to be read or re-read today—and not simply as a historical account of his evolution from left to right...
Revisiting Walter Lippmann

Revisiting Walter Lippmann

Walter Lippmann: An Intellectual Biography.  By Tom Arnold-Forster.  Princeton University Press, 2025.  Hardcover, 368 pages, $35. Reviewed by John C. “Chuck” Chalberg. Immersed as he must have been in the papers, columns, and books of Walter Lippmann, intellectual...
Mark Twain Revisited

Mark Twain Revisited

Mark Twain  By Ron Chernow. Penguin Press, 2025.  Hardcover, 1,200 pages, $45. Reviewed by Chuck Chalberg. Let us stipulate at the outset that Ron Chernow has indeed covered the Twain waterfront in this massive volume. How could he not? Twain appears “Afloat” in Part...