Haiti’s Role in the American Civil War

Haiti’s Role in the American Civil War

The Slaveholding Crisis: Fear of Insurrection and the Coming of the Civil War by Carl Lawrence Paulus. LSU Press, 2017. Hardcover, 328 pages, $49. Reviewed by Kyle Sammin In the teaching of American history, the United States is often portrayed as going it alone....
Persuasion in the Age of Twitter

Persuasion in the Age of Twitter

How to Win an Argument: An Ancient Guide to the Art of Persuasion by Marcus Tullius Cicero, translated and edited by James M. May. Princeton University Press, 2016. Hardcover, 288 pages, $17. Reviewed by David G. Bonagura, Jr. It is no secret that American public...
Two Cheers for Ultramontanism

Two Cheers for Ultramontanism

Vatican I: The Council and the Making of the Ultramontane Church by John W. O’Malley. Harvard University Press, 2018. Hardcover, 295 pages, $25. Reviewed by Tyler Dobbs After many long centuries, the papacy had finally met its end. No, we are not talking about the...
The Scientific Case for an Alarming Utopia

The Scientific Case for an Alarming Utopia

Enlightenment Now. The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress by Steven Pinker. Viking, 2018. Hardcover, 556 pages. $35. Reviewed by Jeffrey Folks Steven Pinker’s writing is intriguing. Just about everything he says is half right and half wrong. In this and...
This Is Not How We Got Here

This Is Not How We Got Here

The Road to Unfreedom: Russia, Europe, America by Timothy Snyder. Tim Duggan Books, 2018. Hardcover, 368 pages, $27. Reviewed by Sumantra Maitra How did we end up here? Yale scholar and historian, Professor Timothy Snyder’s latest book attempts to explore the issues...