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...
On Unity and Morale with Charles Martel

On Unity and Morale with Charles Martel

The Path of the Martyrs: Charles Martel, The Battle of Tours, and the Birth of Europe by Ed West. Sharpe Books, 2019. Paperback and Kindle, 108 pages, $6. Reviewed by Matthew M. Robare In October of 732 a Muslim army composed mostly of light cavalry headed north to...
Things Strange and Admirable

Things Strange and Admirable

Laughing Shall I Die: Lives and Deaths of the Great Vikings by Tom Shippey. Reaktion Books, 2018. Hardcover, 368 pages, $30. Reviewed by Timothy D. Lusch It is a mark of our Age of Sensitivity that scholars have tried to turn the murderous Vikings into hygge-loving...