The Forgotten Farnese
Alexander: La Extraordinaria Historia de Alejandro Farnesio by Luis de Carlos Bertrán. Barcelona: Editorial Crítica, 2018. Hardcover, 614 pages, $61. reviewed by Alberto M. Fernandez The Golden Age of Spain was safeguarded by men of iron. Some, like the third Duke of...
The Humane Vision of Elmore Leonard
Westerns: Last Stand at Saber River, Hombre, Valdez is Coming, Forty Lashes Less One, by Elmore Leonard. Edited by Terrence Rafferty. Library of America, 2018. Hardcover, 781 pages, $40. Reviewed by Will Hoyt I first got acquainted with Elmore “Dutch” Leonard when,...
Two Leaders at War
Lincoln and Churchill: Statesmen at War by Lewis E. Lehrman. Stackpole Books, 2018. Hardcover, 526 pages, $35. Reviewed by Chuck Chalberg Studies abound on Lincoln and Churchill. And why not? Each statesman deserves the attention he has received and will continue to...
The Tsarist Commander
Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich, Supreme Commander of the Russian Army by Paul Robinson. Northern Illinois University Press, 2016. Hardcover, 465 pages, $35. Reviewed by James Baresel As I write these words it is, quite unintentionally, exactly one hundred years to the...
The New Storytelling, From Tocqueville to Fortnite
By Titus Techera Computer games are the least discussed of our massive entertainment industries. Gaming is uniquely dominated by men and newest among our forms of entertainment, so the suspicion that it owes its success to its criticism of our society is still fresh....
Prophets of Paradise?
Utopia Is Creepy: And Other Provocations by Nicholas Carr. W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2016. Hardcover, 360 pages, $15. Reviewed by Jacob Bruggeman Historians and science fiction writers, philosophers and some politicians, have for decades warned us of the...
Defending Against the Old Chaos
The Grand Strategy of the Habsburg Empire by A. Wess Mitchell. Princeton University Press, 2018. Hardcover, 416 pages, $35. Reviewed by Francis P. Sempa Between 1700 and 1866, the Austrian Habsburgs skillfully navigated the great power politics of Europe, withstanding...
Not Enough Argument
Not Enough: Human Rights in an Unequal World by Samuel Moyn. Belknap Press, 2018. Hardcover, 264 pages, $30. Reviewed by Oliver Traldi In 1971, the analytically minded linguist Noam Chomsky debated the postmodern theorist Michel Foucault. Both leftists, they...
Eleven New Ghostly Tales
Lady Stanhope’s Manuscript and Other Stories by Dale Nelson. Nodens Books, 2017. Paperback, 206 pages, $16. Reviewed by Robert Grano In Russell Kirk’s essay “A Cautionary Note on the Ghostly Tale” he quotes ghost story writer Gerald Heard as once telling him that “the...
For America250, @lsheahan enters the fray:
What the American Revolution Secured: Order, Justice, and Freedom
A "revolution not made, but prevented.” Russell Kirk fondly and frequently quoted E. J. Payne’s pithy summary of Burke’s view of the Glorious Revolution.
"So yes, Lord Alfred, perhaps you are right after all. ’Tis not too late to seek a newer world! Perhaps one last Ulyssean adventure remains beyond the sunset, and perhaps some work of noble note may yet be done."