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...
Localism is Americanism

Localism is Americanism

Localism: Coming Home to Catholic Social Teaching Edited by Dale Ahlquist and Michael Warren Davis. Sophia Institute Press, 2024.  Hardcover, 240 pages, $21.95. Reviewed by John C. “Chuck” Chalberg. If the editors of this collection win the day, a new “ism” will be...
Reappraising Woodrow Wilson

Reappraising Woodrow Wilson

Woodrow Wilson: The Light Withdrawn By Christopher Cox.  Simon and Schuster, 2024. Hardcover, 640 pages, $34.99. Reviewed by John C. “Chuck” Chalberg. “The light withdrawn . . .” The line is borrowed from John Greenleaf Whittier’s poem “Ichabod.” Woodrow Wilson as...