Placing Chaucer

Placing Chaucer

Chaucer: A European Life by Marion Turner. Princeton University Press, 2019. Hardcover, 624 pages, $40. Reviewed by Carl Rollyson We know so little about Shakespeare’s life. The facts could be put onto no more than a page. That has not prevented biographers from...
John Lukacs: Reactionary, Not Conservative

John Lukacs: Reactionary, Not Conservative

By John P. McCarthy On May 6th I received an email that historian John Lukacs had died at the age of ninety-five. Looking up, I was startled to notice twelve of his books on the bookshelf immediately behind my computer. Such was the measure of the man that I wanted to...
Fragments of Shattered Empire

Fragments of Shattered Empire

Last Days in Old Europe: Trieste ’79, Vienna ’85, Prague ’89 By Richard Bassett. Allen Lane, 2019. Hardcover, 207 pages, $35. Reviewed by Kevin J. McNamara Empires demand histories as imperious as their subjects, but their aftermath, as this work by Richard Bassett...
More to Say on Slavery and the Constitution

More to Say on Slavery and the Constitution

No Property in Man: Slavery and Antislavery at the Nation’s Founding by Sean Wilentz. Harvard University Press, 2018. Hardcover, 368 pages, $27. Reviewed by Jason Ross The single most influential interpreter of the Convention that framed the Constitution is the...
The Small and the Human, and ‘Free America’

The Small and the Human, and ‘Free America’

The Bookman is pleased to present this excerpt from a forthcoming book, Land & Liberty: The Best of ‘Free America’, which is edited and introduced by Allan C. Carlson, with a preface by Sir Roger Scruton. It will be published by the Wethersfield Institute. By...