A Rebel Against Rebellion

by | Aug 22, 2016

Conversations with Roger Scruton by Roger Scruton and Mark Dooley. Bloomsbury Continuum, 2016. Hardcover, 213 pages, $28. Roger Scruton’s (b. 1944) conservatism has scandalized the bulk of the British intellectual community since the 1970s. This thinker and writer’s...

A New Look at Benjamin Disraeli

by | Apr 25, 2016

Disraeli: The Novel Politician by David Cesarani. Yale University Press, 2016. Hardcover, 292 pages, $25. Reviewed by John P. Rossi Of the so-called “Victorian Giants”—William Ewart Gladstone, Lord Palmerston, Joseph Chamberlain—none have fascinated the public as much...

Enlarging Emily Dickinson

by | Apr 11, 2016

A Loaded Gun: Emily Dickinson for the 21st Century by Jerome Charyn. Bellevue Literary Press, 2016. Paperback, 255 pages, $20. The first part of Jerome Charyn’s title alludes to one of Emily Dickinson’s most enigmatic and powerful poems, which begins, “My Life had...

The Courage of Lewis and Clark

by | Feb 7, 2016

Pedro Blas González Are these indeed men worthy of the name? Walt Whitman, “Democratic Vistas” The Journals of Lewis and Clark is a treasure of American history and exploration. It is also a testament to the strength of character of early American settlers. In 1803...

An Anti-Utopian Life

by | Dec 21, 2015

Isaiah Berlin: A Life, by Michael Ignatieff. New York: Owl Books, 1999. Paper, 356pp., $16. Isaiah Berlin, who died in 1997, was that rare man of letters who was also a man of the world. If Churchill was the statesman who earned laurels as an historian, Berlin was the...