Craftsmanship as Social and Political Endeavor

Craftsmanship as Social and Political Endeavor

Craft: An American History. by Glenn Adamson. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2021. Hardcover, 400 pages. $22.50. Reviewed by Clayton Trutor Glenn Adamson’s new book has completely blown my mind. Like so many great works of history, Craft: An American History takes a seemingly...
More than an Education

More than an Education

The Last American Aristocrat: The Brilliant Life and Improbable Education of Henry Adams By David S. Brown. Scribners, 2020. Hardcover, 426 pages. $25. Reviewed by Clayton Trutor The year I was graduated from high school was the same one in which all of those...
Thebes Gets Its Due

Thebes Gets Its Due

Thebes: The Forgotten City of Ancient Greece by Paul Cartledge. Picador Press, 2020. Hardcover, 287 pages, $30. Reviewed by Clayton Trutor Paul Cartledge makes a compelling case for the centrality of the often “forgotten” city of Thebes to the story of Ancient Greece....
How the Vikings Saw Themselves

How the Vikings Saw Themselves

Children of Ash and Elm: A History of the Vikings by Neil Price. Basic Books, 2020. Hardcover, 624 pages, $35. Reviewed by Clayton Trutor When I stroll through the stacks of a college library, I often find my way over to the DL60s—History of Northern Europe: Earliest...
The Renaissance Reimagined

The Renaissance Reimagined

The Beauty and the Terror: The Italian Renaissance and the Rise of the West by Catherine Fletcher. Oxford University Press, 2020. Hardcover, 384 pages, $30. Reviewed by Clayton Trutor Not all that long ago, the Renaissance was common cultural terrain in American life....