Lessons from a Failed Party?

John Pendleton Kennedy: Early American Novelist, Whig Statesman, & Ardent Nationalist by Andrew R. Black. Louisiana State University Press, 2016. Cloth, 343 pages, $48. Lawyer, professor, statesman, and cabinet official, John Pendleton Kennedy is best remembered...

The Return of Douglas MacArthur

In war, there is no substitute for victory.” “The lands touching the Pacific will determine the course of history for the next thousand years.” The United States, except for the 1991 Persian Gulf War, has not been victorious in war since World War II. Meanwhile,...

The Habsburgs, a Reconsideration

The Habsburg Empire: A New History by Pieter M. Judson. Belknap Press, 2016. Hardcover, 592 pages, $35. The Habsburg Monarchy has long been seen as an outdated empire doomed to fail. To the Central European societies it sheltered before 1914, it may have had a cosy...

The Limits (and Misuse) of Air Power

The Bombers and the Bombed: Allied Air War Over Europe, 1940–1945. By Richard Overy. New York: Viking, 2013. Paperback, 592 pages, $18.In 1938, as war clouds gathered, America’s commander in chief, President Franklin Roosevelt met in November with an ad hoc...

A Partial Introduction to Black Conservatism

Black Conservatism: Essays in Intellectual and Political History edited by Peter Eisenstadt. Routledge, 2015. Paperback, 328 pages, $55. Black Conservatism, a collection edited by Peter Eisenstadt, is an introduction to the lives of lesser-known figures who can be...