Rural America as It Really Is

Rural America as It Really Is

by | Jun 21, 2026

Faith, Family, and Flag: Branson Entertainment and the Idea of America  By Joanna Dee Das. University of Chicago Press, 2025. Hardcover, 272 pages, $27.50. Reviewed by Jason C. Phillips. Over the last eighteen months, I have twice visited Branson, Missouri. Over the...
Toward an American Iliad

Toward an American Iliad

by | Jun 7, 2026

American Independence in Verse By Bradford Skow. Pentameter Press, 2025. Paperback, 94 pages, $9.99. Reviewed by Thomas Philbrick. In Book III of the Aeneid, Aeneas lands with his men on the shores of Carthage after fleeing Troy and surviving a string of harrowing...
The Midwestern Gothic Stories of Eric Cyr

The Midwestern Gothic Stories of Eric Cyr

by | May 31, 2026

Here It Snows in June & Other Stories By Eric Cyr. Wiseblood Books, 2026. Paperback, 156 pages, $16. Reviewed by Nadya Williams. A driver on I-71 who takes the exit toward Ashland, Ohio, my home now for nearly three years, will be greeted with an oversized welcome...
Joseph Story and the Politics of the Early Republic

Joseph Story and the Politics of the Early Republic

by | May 24, 2026

Contending for American Nationhood: Joseph Story and the Debate Over a Federal Common Law By Benjamin Clark. Lexington Books, 2024. Hardcover, 252 pages, $120.00. Reviewed by John G. Grove.  The debate over federal common law does not generally fire the imaginations...
Our Lives in the Panopticon

Our Lives in the Panopticon

by | May 17, 2026

The Information State: Politics in the Age of Total Control Jacob Siegel. Henry Holt and Co., 2026. Hardcover, 336 pages, $29.99. Reviewed by Albert Norton, Jr. Just within the last year, Paul Kingsnorth published Against The Machine about the source of our increasing...