Calhoun, Compromise, and Consequence
Heirs of the Founders: The Epic Rivalry of Henry Clay, John Calhoun, and Daniel Webster, the Second Generation of American Giants by H. W. Brands. Doubleday, 2018. Hardcover, 432 pages, $30 Reviewed by Carl Rollyson Henry Clay (1777–1852), John Calhoun (1782–1850),...
Citizens of the World
The Sand Pebbles by Richard McKenna. Naval Institute Press, [1962] 2001. Paper, 624 pages, $26. Reviewed by Casey Chalk This October marked the one-year anniversary of the release of Caitlan Coleman and Joshua Boyle, an American/Canadian couple captured by the Taliban...
The Revolution That Did Not End in Blood
A Conversation with Antonia Fraser Interviewed by JP O’Malley Antonia Fraser is the author of many acclaimed and bestselling novels and historical works, including Mary Queen of Scots; Cromwell, Our Chief of Men; and The Gunpowder Plot: Terror and Faith in 1605. She...
Christian Martyrs in the First Islamic States
Christian Martyrs Under Islam: Religious Violence and the Making of the Muslim World by Christian C. Sahner. Princeton University Press, 2018. Hardcover, 360 pages, $39. Reviewed by Jane Peters On February 15, 2018 in the village of al-Our, the Coptic Orthodox Church...
His Old Kentucky Home
Henry Clay: The Man Who Would Be President by James C. Klotter. Oxford University Press, 2018. Hardcover, xix + 506 pages, $35. Reviewed by Miles Smith When Abraham Lincoln called Henry Clay his beau ideal of a statesmen in the 1840s, he echoed respectable businessmen...
Orpheus Britannicus
A New English Music: Composers and Folk Traditions in England’s Musical Renaissance from the Late 19th to the Mid-20th Century by Tim Rayborn. McFarland & Co., 2016. Paperback, 312 pages, $40. Reviewed by R. J. Stove When I come to England, I don’t claim...
Percy and the Persistence of Alienation
Walker Percy and the Politics of the Wayfarer by Brian A. Smith. Lexington Books, 2017. Hardcover, 195 pages, $91. Reviewed by Emina Melonic By nature, we are restless and distracted beings. Feeling empty, isolated, disconnected, and unhappy is nothing new. Even early...
When Democracy Came, It Came in a Flurry
The Coming of Democracy: Presidential Campaigning in the Age of Jackson By Mark R. Cheathem. Johns Hopkins University Press, 2018. Paperback, 248 pages, $25. Reviewed by John Bicknell “I have been charmed to see that a presidential election now produces scarcely any...
A Desire to Win Well
American Honor: The Creation of the Nation’s Ideals During the Revolutionary Era by Craig Bruce Smith. University of North Carolina Press, 2018. Hardcover, 384 pages, $35. Reviewed by Daniel N. Gullotta Recent historians have found little honorable about the American...
A Christmas Carol is great literature. Ghosts are a must for Christmas.