Joseph Story and the Politics of the Early Republic

Joseph Story and the Politics of the Early Republic

Contending for American Nationhood: Joseph Story and the Debate Over a Federal Common Law By Benjamin Clark. Lexington Books, 2024. Hardcover, 252 pages, $120.00. Reviewed by John G. Grove.  The debate over federal common law does not generally fire the imaginations...
Listening to the Law, and Now Speaking It

Listening to the Law, and Now Speaking It

Listening to the Law: Reflections on the Court and Constitution  By Amy Coney Barrett. Sentinel, 2025.  Hardcover, 336 pages, $32.00. Reviewed by James V. F. Dickey. Listening to the Law reveals the personal and public-facing perspectives of Supreme Court Justice Amy...
Michigan’s Neglected Civil War Governor

Michigan’s Neglected Civil War Governor

Radical of Radicals: Austin Blair—Civil War Governor—In His Own Words By Jack Dempsey. Mission Point Press, 2025. Paperback, 360 pages, $18.95. Reviewed by Miles Smith IV. In every intelligent history of the Civil War Era, the major players show up on stage, right on...
Britain at the Turning Point

Britain at the Turning Point

Advance Britannia: The Epic Story of the Second World War, 1942-1945 By Alan Allport. Knopf, 2026. Hardcover, 656 pages, $40. Reviewed by John P. Rossi. Advance Britannia is the second volume of Alan Allport’s history of Britain’s role in World War II. The first...
Reconsidering Franklin D. Roosevelt

Reconsidering Franklin D. Roosevelt

FDR: A New Political Life By David T. Beito.  Open Universe, 2025.  Paperback, 284 pages, $29.95. Reviewed by Chuck Chalberg.  Did the presidency of Herbert Hoover and the New Deal of Franklin Roosevelt actually prolong what today might be remembered as the “panic of...