Mistaking Defeat for Victory?

Defending Faith: The Politics of the Christian Conservative Legal Movement by Daniel Bennett. University Press of Kansas, 2017. Hardcover, 224 pages, $35.One of the most compelling features of Daniel Bennett’s recent book, Defending Faith: The Politics of the...

The High Price of Duty

The Once and Future Liberal: After Identity Politics by Mark Lilla. HarperCollins, 2017. Hardcover, 143 pages, $25.The publishing logic behind The Once and Future Liberal is impeccable. Defeated and divided after the 2016 election, liberals urgently asked themselves...

The Problem with Liberalism

The Retreat of Western Liberalism by Edward Luce. Atlantic Monthly Press, 2017. Hardcover, 226 pages, $24. Can liberals save liberalism “from itself?” Edward Luce offers this question in his new book The Retreat of Western Liberalism, but situates it as part of an...

Great Minds and Humble Servants

A conversation with Philipp Rosemann. The Bookman would like to welcome Philipp Rosemann, who, after teaching at the University of Dallas for over twenty years, was just appointed to the Chair of Philosophy at the National University of Ireland in Maynooth. He spoke...

What Happened to Blackford Oakes?

A Man and His Presidents: The Political Odyssey of William F. Buckley Jr. by Alvin S. Felzenberg. Yale University Press, 2017. Hardcover, 417 pages, $35. Reviewed by William F. Meehan III Of the memorable lines about William F. Buckley Jr., spoken on the occasion of...

William F. Buckley, Jr. and His Presidents

A Man and His Presidents: The Political Odyssey of William F. Buckley Jr. by Alvin S. Felzenberg. Yale University Press, 2017. Hardcover, 417 pages, $35. What more can possibly be said of William F. Buckley, Jr. that he or his biographers have not already said or...

Remember the Walking Dead

The Dead March: A History of the Mexican-American War by Peter Guardino. Harvard University Press, 2017. Hardcover, 512 pages, $40.The Mexican-American War (1846–1848) is one of the least-remembered conflicts in American history despite being one of the most...

Untethered Revolution

The Expanding Blaze: How the American Revolution Ignited the World, 1775–1848 by Jonathan Israel. Princeton University Press, 2017. Hardcover, 768 pages, $40. We know what partisanship is without invoking Aristotle. We see it all around us, especially after collective...

Literature as Counterculture

A conversation with Robert P. WaxlerRobert P. Waxler is professor of English at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth and cofounder of the Changing Lives Through Literature program. AM: I’m grateful for this interview, Bob. As you know, I read and enjoyed your...

The Enigma of the Black Republican

The Loneliness of the Black Republican: Pragmatic Politics and the Pursuit of Power by Leah Wright Rigueur. Princeton University Press, 2015. Hardcover, 432 pages, $37.50.In her authorial debut, The Loneliness of the Black Republican, Harvard historian Leah Wright...