History of the American Revolution Well Told
The Diplomacy of the American Revolution By Samuel Flagg Bemis. Introduction by Ben Judge. Encounter Books, 2024. Hardcover, 272 pages, $30.99. Reviewed by Kevin R. C. Gutzman. Samuel Flagg Bemis was a master of American diplomatic history, a field that has now...
Virtue in the Age of Neo-Machiavellianism
Political Meritocracy in Renaissance Italy: The Virtuous Republic of Francesco Patrizi of Siena By James Hankins. Harvard University Press, 2023. Hardcover, 448 pages, $55. Reviewed by Jesse Russell. We live in a Neo-Machiavellian age. Gone are the “End of History”...
The U.S. Constitution and Slavery
The Antebellum Origins of the Modern Constitution: Slavery and the Spirit of the American Founding By Simon Gilhooley. Cambridge University Press, 2020. Paperback, 283 pages, $29.99. Slavery and Sacred Texts: The Bible, the Constitution, and Historical Consciousness...
Draining the Swamp
You Report to Me: Accountability for the Failing Administrative State By David Bernhardt. Encounter Books, 2023. Hardcover, 272 pages, $29.99. Reviewed by Chuck Chalberg. In recent years the term “administrative state” has become part of our common parlance. The...
Decades ago, Robert Nisbet anticipated many of today’s concerns about loneliness, bureaucracy, and declining community. Luke C. Sheahan (@lsheahan) revisits the ideas behind those warnings and their relevance today.
Questions about first principles have become fashionable again. @HorcherF and @DanJTPitt apply generosity to smooth contention between intellectuals and politicians, they embrace the tension between theory and practice, and they highlight the power of particularity as a source of