America’s Angriest Writer
Mad at the World: A Life of John Steinbeck by William Souder. Norton, 2020. Hardcover, 464 pages, $32. Reviewed by Margot Enns In a key scene in John Steinbeck’s East of Eden, Cal, the darker, moodier brother, blackmails his brother, Aron, to keep quiet about Cal’s...
The Soul of a Free Man
Black Spartacus: The Epic Life of Toussaint Louverture by Sudhir Hazareesingh. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2020. Hardcover, 464 pages, $30. Reviewed by Kyle Sammin In the American Revolution, Enlightenment principles, natural rights, and the traditions of English...
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
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...
The award ceremony will be on 11/19 at the National Press Club in DC. More information and registration here:
The @KirkCenter has announced that the McLellan Prize for Free Speech will be awarded to influential legal scholar Eugene Volokh! @VolokhC https://kirkcenter.org/highlights/eugene-volokh-awarded-2026-richard-d-mclellan-prize-for-advancing-free-speech-and-expression/