No Mere Textbook

No Mere Textbook

Land of Hope: An Invitation to the Great American Story by Wilfred M. McClay. Encounter Books, 2019. Hardcover, 504 pages, $35. Reviewed by Bruce P. Frohnen In this fine book, Wilfred McClay makes an important contribution to American education and culture. Every year...
Reagan’s Consistent Cheerful Convictions

Reagan’s Consistent Cheerful Convictions

The Literary Reagan: Authentic Quotations from His Life By Nicholas Dujmovic. Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2019. Hardcover, 346 pages, $88. Reviewed by William F. Meehan III Nicholas Dujmovic’s rationale for compiling and editing The Literary Reagan is clear: the...
Writer as Goad

Writer as Goad

Ben Hecht: Fighting Words, Moving Pictures by Adina Hoffman. Yale University Press, 2019 Hardcover, 264 pages, $26. Reviewed by Carl Rollyson Ben Hecht is one of those American writers who seems to have had a hand in everything. He was a Chicago newspaperman who also...
Thucydides’s Challenge

Thucydides’s Challenge

How to Think about War: An Ancient Guide to Foreign Policy by Thucydides, edited by Johanna Hanink. Princeton University Press, 2019. Hardcover, 336 pages, $17. Reviewed by Nick Burns If pulled from his grave near the base of the Pnyx Hill, unceremoniously revivified,...
An Historian’s Evolving Vision of Mankind

An Historian’s Evolving Vision of Mankind

21 Lessons for the 21st Century by Yuval Noah Harari. Spiegel and Grau, 2018. Hardcover, 400 pages, $28. Reviewed by Jeffrey Folks Yuval Noah Harari is a brilliant historian teaching at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. His 2015 bestseller, Sapiens: A Brief History...