In the wake of Hamas' attack on Israel, Douglas Murray asks broad questions: “What can Western liberal societies do in the face of such movements? What can people who value life do in the face of those who worship death.” On Democracies and Death Cults: Israel and the Future of Civilization, by Douglas Murray (209 [...]
The revolution that William F. Buckley, Jr., set into motion itself remains far from complete. In truth, and in Buckley’s mind, the main idea was actually to create a counter-establishment that would eventually produce not a revolution, but a “counter-revolution.” Buckley: The Life and the Revolution That Changed America, by Sam Tanenhaus (1018 pages, Random [...]
David Horowitz has been an unrelenting fighter and a happy warrior, and has had his fair share of tribulations. But never has he succumbed to a sense of victimhood. There were always too many good people to appreciate, and when he was young, a world to save, and as he grew older and wiser, warnings [...]
In his excellent memoir, Georgetown Law Center Professor Randy Barnett reveals what he has long maintained: “There will never come a time when our liberty is permanently secured, but there may well come a time when our liberty is permanently lost.” A Life for Liberty: The Making of an American Originalist, by Randy Barnett (635 [...]
Kevin Roberts sees the need for what amounts to a second American revolution—a peaceful one of fundamental change, which he hopes will result in the downfall, if not destruction, of institutions that buttress the corrupt "Uniparty" in Washington. Kevin Roberts. Dawn’s Early Light: Taking Back Washington to Save America. (285 pages, HarperCollins, 2024. During the [...]
In John Ganz's account of the breaking clock of the early 1990s, the woeful era was apparently little more than a prelude to, or the dress rehearsal for, the eventual coming to power of one Donald J. Trump. When the Clock Broke: Con Men, Conspiracists and How America Cracked up in the Early 1990s, by [...]
The purpose of education has not remained the same over the course of roughly four centuries. By the early 20th century, education for Protestantization and Americanization began to give way to something called "progressive education.” Not surprisingly, it is progressive education that Richard Weaver targets. Published in 1964, Richard Weaver’s Visions of Order: The Cultural [...]
“The book that explains Trump’s dominance may well have been published in 1962.” Or so contend the editors of the Atlantic Monthly. Amazon apparently agrees, since its blurb to promote current sales of Daniel Boorstin’s The Image borrows directly from the editors of the Atlantic and their leap into an increasingly distant past. But is [...]
If a single descriptor would define conservative activist and scholar, Lee Edwards, it would have to be Lee Edwards, anti-communist. And that would be anti-communism at home and abroad. Just Right: A Life in Pursuit of Liberty by Lee Edwards. (378 pages, Regnery, 2024) If the repeated call of the old Popular Front was “no [...]
It would be worse than a shame to get rid of the singular invention of those who drafted the Constitution of 1787. It would be a mistake, and a very big mistake at that. Just what was that unique entity? It would be the creation of “electors” to serve in what we have come to [...]
Allen Guelzo might very well have had the current state of affairs in his country in mind when he set out to offer this rumination on Abraham Lincoln. It would be hard, if not impossible, to imagine otherwise. Our Ancient Faith: Lincoln, Democracy, and the American Experiment, by Allen C. Guelzo (247 pages, Knopf, 2024) [...]
Whether 1968 really was “the year that broke politics” is, at best, debatable. But it certainly was a year during which past patterns of politics were seriously upended. In other words, the title of Luke A. Nichter's book is more eye-catching than accurate. Nonetheless, there was collusion and chaos aplenty in that fateful year. The [...]
Will this Democratic defeat trigger another batch of wilderness years for the party? And if so, how long will this period last? The recently concluded presidential election is not without its historical parallels and ironies, both of which speak to the country’s immediate future, as well as to the future of the Democratic Party. At [...]
To what extent Colonel Edward House’s novel "Philip Dru" contributed to the Wilsonian transformation of the Democratic party will likely never be known. But we do know that Woodrow Wilson read the book, brought House to the White House, and relied on House for advice and companionship. Philip Dru: Administrator - A Story of Tomorrow, [...]