Ireland Since the Famine: An Appreciation
Ireland Since the Famine: 1850 to the Present by F. S. L. Lyons. Fontana Press, [1971] 1985. Paperback, 880 pages. Reviewed by John Rossi Fifty years ago, a book appeared that refined the writing and understanding of modern Irish history. F. S. L. Lyons’s...
Of Prophets and Presidents
Joseph Smith for President: The Prophet, the Assassins, and the Fight for American Religious Freedom by Spencer W. McBride. Oxford University Press, 2021. Hardcover, 269 pages, $30. Reviewed by John Bicknell America in 1844 was a religious place. But it was not, in...
Wilson’s (Self) Determination
Woodrow Wilson and the Reimagining of Eastern Europe By Larry Wolff. Stanford University Press, 2020. Hardcover, 304 pages, from $30. Reviewed by Kevin J. McNamara This work is a species of modern intellectual history in the tradition of Orientalism, by Edward W....
Facing the Past
Calhoun: American Heretic by Robert Elder. Basic Books, 2021. Hardcover, 656 pages, $35. Reviewed by Miles Smith IV In his 1953 opus The Conservative Mind, Russell Kirk summed up John Calhoun’s contribution to intellectual conservatism succinctly when he noted that...
For America250, @lsheahan enters the fray:
What the American Revolution Secured: Order, Justice, and Freedom
A "revolution not made, but prevented.” Russell Kirk fondly and frequently quoted E. J. Payne’s pithy summary of Burke’s view of the Glorious Revolution.
"So yes, Lord Alfred, perhaps you are right after all. ’Tis not too late to seek a newer world! Perhaps one last Ulyssean adventure remains beyond the sunset, and perhaps some work of noble note may yet be done."