The Possibilities and Impossibilities of Willmoore Kendall
by Joshua Tait There are many legends about the political theorist Willmoore Kendall. A great deal of them are true. He was a founding editor of National Review. He reported on the Spanish Civil War. He worked in military intelligence. He spoke three languages and...
A Compelling and Contradictory Prophet
Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom by David W. Blight. Simon and Schuster, 2018. Hardcover, 888 pages, $37.50. Reviewed by Annelisa J. Purdie Frederick Douglass (1818–1895) is a remarkable and compelling figure in American history. His portraits are among the most...
Thought Is a Labyrinth
Questioning Minds: The Letters of Guy Davenport and Hugh Kenner Edited by Edward M. Burns. Counterpoint, 2018. Hardcover, 2016 pages, $95. Reviewed by Phil Christman Culture is, among other things, a conspiracy of the like-minded. “The idea is to accumulate a Vortex,”...
Calhoun, Compromise, and Consequence
Heirs of the Founders: The Epic Rivalry of Henry Clay, John Calhoun, and Daniel Webster, the Second Generation of American Giants by H. W. Brands. Doubleday, 2018. Hardcover, 432 pages, $30 Reviewed by Carl Rollyson Henry Clay (1777–1852), John Calhoun (1782–1850),...
"A more than occasional glutton for punishment, Field dips into and out of conservative conferences, the better to enable herself to assert herself into this story. No doubt those on the left will be mostly pleased by what they read in these pages, while those on the right will
[F]or all their handwringing about the red-state barbarians at the gates, Chemerinsky and Gillman cannot or will not see what their own argument and their own evidence of student, faculty, and administrator behavior show to even a mildly attentive reader: The greatest enemies of