Dr. Jeffrey Polet
Dr. Jeffrey Polet Jeff Polet is Director of the Ford Leadership Forum at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Foundation. Previously he was a Professor of Political Science at Hope College, and before that at Malone College in Canton, OH. A native of West Michigan, he...
More Than Mildly Amusing
Mr. Mehan’s Mildly Amusing Mythical Mammals by Matthew Mehan. TAN Books, 2018. Hardcover, 135 pages. $24.95. Reviewed by Elizabeth Bittner Few people have the chance to write a book with their best friend. Few Shakespeare scholars choose to write children’s books....
What Makes the Midwest Midwestern?
Finding a New Midwestern History edited by Jon K. Lauck, Gleaves Whitney, and Joseph Hogan. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2018. Hardcover, 365 pp. $55. Reviewed by Jonathan Kasparek The field of Midwestern history is in the midst of an exciting renaissance as...
Fear Your Toaster
Click Here to Kill Everybody: Security and Survival in a Hyper-Connected World by Bruce Schneier W. W. Norton & Company, 2018. Hardcover, 288 pages, $28. Reviewed by Michael J. Ard What happens when everything is a computer, connected to everything else? How then...
Ideology Unbounded in San Francisco
Cult City: Jim Jones, Harvey Milk, and Ten Days That Shook San Francisco by Daniel J. Flynn. Intercollegiate Studies Institute, 2018. Hardcover, 288 pages, $28. Reviewed by Matthew Stokes Conservatives of all stripes learn at a very young age that there are certain...
The Rise of Black Intellectual History
New Perspectives on the Black Intellectual Tradition Edited by Keisha N. Blain, Christopher Cameron, and Ashley D. Farmer. Northwestern University Press, 2018. Paperback, 272 pages, $34.95. Reviewed by Chidike Okeem While the physical prowess of African people is much...
Pondering the Defeatists
The Age of Defeat by Colin Wilson with an introduction by Thomas F. Bertonneau. Aristeia Press, 2018. Paperback, 243 pages, $15. Reviewed by Richard Cocks This handsome new edition of The Age of Defeat is complemented by Tom Bertonneau’s excellent introduction....
Hibernian Pastoral
My Father Left Me Ireland: An American Son’s Search for Home by Michael Brendan Dougherty Sentinel, 2019. Hardcover, 240 pages, $24. Reviewed by Chris R. Morgan Michael Brendan Dougherty’s My Father Left Me Ireland is the latest in a spate of books currently...
A Gimlet Eye Beneath a Chapel Veil
Frost in May By Antonia White Virago Modern Classics, [1933] 2019. Paperback, 224 pages, $14. Reviewed by Eve Tushnet “We work to-day to turn out, not accomplished young women, nor agreeable wives, but soldiers of Christ, accustomed to hardship and ridicule and...
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!