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...
Hibernian Pastoral
My Father Left Me Ireland: An American Son’s Search for Home by Michael Brendan Dougherty Sentinel, 2019. Hardcover, 240 pages, $24. Reviewed by Chris R. Morgan Michael Brendan Dougherty’s My Father Left Me Ireland is the latest in a spate of books currently...
Framing a Life in Liberal Learning
From the Cast-Iron Shore: In Lifelong Pursuit of Liberal Learning by Francis Oakley. University of Notre Dame Press, 2018. Paperback, 526 pages, $35. Reviewed by Weronika Janczuk The story narrated in any given memoir is dependent on the life of the one who narrates....
The Doctor’s Mask, Removed
Counting Backwards: A Doctor’s Notes on Anesthesia by Henry Jay Przybylo, MD. W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2017. Hardcover, 256 pages, $26. Reviewed by Jacob A. Bruggeman On occasion, one can come upon good books by coincidence. An offhand recommendation from a...
There are metaphorical hills on which I would be willing to die. The Oxford comma is one of them.
So easy to forget that the best way to educate yourself is to read great works of literature and philosophy, then talk about them. Bring back the salon!