De Gaulle’s Ambition for France

De Gaulle’s Ambition for France

A Certain Idea of France: The Life of Charles de Gaulle by Julian Jackson. Allen Lane, 2018 / Penguin 2019. Paperback, 928 pages, $30. Reviewed by Owen Edwards The summary of Julian Jackson’s reading of de Gaulle is the section title of Part Four of this monumental...
Progressing to Nowhere?

Progressing to Nowhere?

Progressivism: The Strange History of a Radical Idea by Bradley C. S. Watson. University of Notre Dame Press, 2020. Hardcover, 251 pages, $45. Reviewed by John C. Chalberg Just who were the original progressives of a century ago? They reached all the way from Social...
The World the Habsburgs Built

The World the Habsburgs Built

The Habsburgs: To Rule the World by Martyn Rady. Basic Books 2020. Hardcover, 416 pages, $32. Reviewed by Avi Woolf At their peak in the sixteenth century, they ruled much of the known world. A beacon of the true, universal Catholic faith to many, a source of sorrow...
Discouraging Charity

Discouraging Charity

Who Killed Civil Society? The Rise of Big Government and Decline of Bourgeois Norms by Howard A. Husock. Encounter Books, 2019. Hardcover, 176 pages $24. Reviewed by Daniel James Sundahl It’s a likely sign of the times. On a Tuesday last December, the phone rang with...
A Virus and a Fall of Rome

A Virus and a Fall of Rome

Scarpia by Piers Paul Read. Bloomsbury, 2016. Hardcover, 364 pages, $27. Reviewed by Trevor C. Merrill You could enjoy this novel about a young Sicilian rising through the ranks of Roman society in the 1790s without knowing anything about Puccini’s Tosca. It’s a...