by Michael Federici | Jan 10, 2021
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...
by Casey Chalk | Jan 10, 2021
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...
by William F. Meehan III | Jan 3, 2021
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...
by Clayton Trutor | Jan 3, 2021
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...
by Frank Freeman | Jan 3, 2021
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...
by Stephen B Presser | Dec 27, 2020
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...
by Lance Kinzer | Dec 27, 2020
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...
by Christine Norvell | Dec 27, 2020
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...
by John Tuttle | Dec 20, 2020
Letters from Father Christmas by J. R. R. Tolkien Houghton Mifflin Company, 2020. Hardcover, 208 pages, $28. Reviewed by John Tuttle The name Tolkien is first and foremost associated with what is widely acknowledged as the man’s chief literary creation, The...
by Daniel James Sundahl | Dec 20, 2020
The Will of the People: The Revolutionary Birth of America by T. H. Breen. Harvard University Press, 2019. Hardcover, 272 pages, $29.95 Reviewed by Daniel James Sundahl Harlow Giles Unger’s recent biography on Thomas Paine makes the clarion call that Paine’s written...
