Fundamentally Religious and Catholic

Fundamentally Religious and Catholic

Tolkien’s Faith: A Spiritual Biography by Holly Ordway. Word on Fire Academic, 2023. Hardcover, 532 pages, $ 34.95. Reviewed by Adam Schwartz. J. R. R. Tolkien famously described The Lord of the Rings as a “fundamentally religious and Catholic work.”...
The Classically Educated Mind of W. E. B Du Bois

The Classically Educated Mind of W. E. B Du Bois

Co-Workers in the Kingdom of Culture: Classics and Cosmopolitanism in the Thought of W. E. B. Du Bois By David Withun.  Oxford University Press, 2022.  Hardcover, 256 pages, $80.00. Reviewed by Chris Butynskyi. Race, class, gender. These are three important components...
Inside the Split Mind of George Kennan

Inside the Split Mind of George Kennan

Kennan: A Life Between Worlds By Frank Costigliola. Princeton University Press, 2023.  Hardcover, 648 pages, $39.95. Reviewed by John C. Chalberg. Biographies of George Frost Kennan can have tales of their own. Or so concludes Kennan’s most recent biographer,...
A Very American Historian

A Very American Historian

C. Vann Woodward: America’s Historian By James C. Cobb.  University of North Carolina Press, 2022. Hardcover, 504 pages, $37.50. Reviewed by John C. Chalberg. Should C. Vann Woodward be regarded as America’s historian? Given his career and this biography, a more...
History Is Never Certain

History Is Never Certain

The Man Who Understood Democracy: The Life of Alexis de Tocqueville By Olivier Zunz. Princeton University Press, 2022. Hardcover, 472 pages, $35. Reviewed by Sarah Gustafson. In years since Alexis de Tocqueville’s death in 1859, his popularity has ebbed and flowed...