The Elon Musk of Botany Bay?

The Elon Musk of Botany Bay?

The Multifarious Mr. Banks: From Botany Bay to Kew, The Natural Historian Who Shaped the World By Toby Musgrave. Yale University Press, 2020. Hardcover, 357 pp., $35. Reviewed by Karl C. Schaffenburg In current usage “multifarious” refers to a thing that demonstrates...
The Nation’s First Architect

The Nation’s First Architect

Building America: The Life of Benjamin Henry Latrobe by Jean H. Baker. Oxford University Press, 2020. Hardcover, 304 pages, $35. Reviewed by Addison Del Mastro Benjamin Henry Latrobe is, in two ways, not Pierre L’Enfant—he was not, despite his surname, French; and he...
An Imitation of Christ

An Imitation of Christ

The Volunteer: One Man, an Underground Army, and the Secret Mission to Destroy Auschwitz by Jack Fairweather. Custom House, 2019. Hardcover, 528 pages, $29. Reviewed by Joseph Barnas If you have heard of Witold Pilecki, odds are you know him as “the man who...
Skiing Alta with WFB

Skiing Alta with WFB

William F. Meehan III ‘Alta’ isn’t a word you hear often in fashionable conversations in skiing circles … You can live out a casual lifetime, as a casual skier, and not know about Alta, and the odd thing is that this really suits the Alta people just fine. There is...
Scruton, Defender of the Past

Scruton, Defender of the Past

Jeffrey Folks Roger Scruton was the author of over fifty books and of a great many articles and notes. He taught at Birkbeck College, London, from 1971 to 1992, and later part-time at other universities, and he was a prominent speaker at conferences and institutes,...