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
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
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
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...
There are metaphorical hills on which I would be willing to die. The Oxford comma is one of them.
So easy to forget that the best way to educate yourself is to read great works of literature and philosophy, then talk about them. Bring back the salon!