The Last Plantagenet

The Last Plantagenet

Uncrowned Queen: The Life of Margaret Beaufort, Mother of the Tudors By Nicola Tallis. Basic Books, 2020. Hardcover, 416 pages, $32. Reviewed by Garrett Robinson The Tudors, unfortunately famous now primarily through film and pulp-histories, have a name for themselves...
Holding a Wolf by the Ears

Holding a Wolf by the Ears

Jefferson, Madison, and the Making of the Constitution by Jeff Broadwater. University of North Carolina Press, 2019. Hardcover, 296 pages, $30. Reviewed by Jason Ross No friendship in American history has been as consequential as that between Thomas Jefferson and...
A Refreshed and Refreshing Federalist

A Refreshed and Refreshing Federalist

Reflection and Choice: The Federalists, the Anti-Federalists, and the Debate that Defined America Edited by Gary L. Gregg II and Aaron N. Coleman. McConnell Center Books, 2020. Hardcover, 652 pages, $49.95. Reviewed by Michael Federici Since the original publication...
Naive Virtue?

Naive Virtue?

First Principles: What America’s Founders Learned from the Greeks and Romans and How That Shaped Our Country by Thomas E. Ricks. Harper, 2020. Hardcover, 416 pages, $30. Reviewed by Casey Chalk A classic, said Mark Twain, is “a book which people praise but don’t...
A Life for the Longfellow Renaissance

A Life for the Longfellow Renaissance

Cross of Snow: A Life of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow by Nicholas A. Basbanes. Knopf, 2020. Hardcover, 461 pages, $37.50. Reviewed by William F. Meehan III Henry Wadsworth Longfellow faded so far into American cultural memory that it is easy to forget he was the...
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...
Hemingway Finds His Voice

Hemingway Finds His Voice

Ernest Hemingway: The Sun Also Rises & Other Writings, 1918–1926 Edited by Robert W. Trogdon. Library of America, 2020. Hardcover, 863 pages, $35. Reviewed by Frank Freeman It was surely no accident that the first Library of America volume devoted to Ernest...
Woodward, Reconstruction, and Their Legacy

Woodward, Reconstruction, and Their Legacy

The Lost Lectures of C. Vann Woodward Edited by Natalie J. Ring and Sarah E. Gardner. Oxford University Press, 2020. Hardcover, 288 Pages, $35. Reviewed by Stephen B. Presser The great intractable American social problem is race. There is, undeniably, a vast...
Finding a Different Self

Finding a Different Self

The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self: Cultural Amnesia, Expressive Individualism, and the Road to Sexual Revolution by Carl R. Trueman. Crossway, 2020. Hardcover, 425 pages, $35. Reviewed by Lance Kinzer If a modern day Rip Van Winkle fell asleep in 1960 and woke...
The Curse of Knowledge

The Curse of Knowledge

A Golden Fury by Samantha Cohoe. Wednesday Books, 2020. Hardcover, 352 pages. $19. Reviewed by Christine Norvell Curses are too common, particularly in fairy tales. Beauty and the Beast, Cinderella, Hansel and Gretel, Puss-in-Boots. Thanks to the collections of the...