Books
June 15, 2013 — Steven Hayward
Light bulb jokes seem to have fallen out of fashion because, well, I’m tempted to say it’s because light bulbs—at least light bulbs that work—have fallen out of fashion. But that’s a post for a Green Weenie Award, and this is a post about feminism, though I have to admit, the prospects of annoying environmentalists and feminists with one joke is an irresistible temptation. Few jokes are more politically incorrect
»
June 15, 2013 — Scott Johnson
Diana West’s American Betrayal: The Secret Assault on Our Nation’s Character has just been published. I have only started the book and am unable to evaluate it, but I can say I hope it gets a hearing. Diana writes of the six-and-a-half minute video below: “Went on with the delightful Michael Coren on Sun TV in Canada last night to make my first attempt at sound-byting the 401 pages and
»
June 14, 2013 — Scott Johnson
This morning we conclude our preview of the Spring issue of the Claremont Review of Books (subscribe here) with an essay on that most American of American novels, Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. The essay is by Power Line 100 member Paul A. Cantor, the Clifton Waller Barrett Professor of English at the University of Virginia. Professor Cantor begins by noting the distance between the popular perception of Huck
»
June 13, 2013 — Scott Johnson
The Spring issue of the Claremont Review of Books (subscribe here) is out with the magazine’s usual ration of high-quality reviews and essays. Yesterday we previewed Colin Dueck’s review/essay on the folly of liberals, who mistook the end of the Cold War for the end of geopolitical competition. Today we turn to our very own, very prolific Steven F. Hayward’s review of two books on the postwar revival of free
»
June 12, 2013 — Steven Hayward
William F. Buckley remarked that he found it impossible to define conservatism in one sentence, but whenever someone insisted that he offer a one-sentence definition he would “punish” them with Richard Weaver’s: “Conservatism is the paradigm of essences towards which the phenomenology of the world is in continuing approximation.” (“With a straight face,” Buckley added.) This suggests one of the reasons why Weaver has never acquired a wider audience, even
»
June 12, 2013 — Scott Johnson
This past weekend I pored over the magnificent new (Spring) issue of the Claremont Review of Books. The CRB is the flagship publication of the Claremont Institute and my favorite magazine. I want to persuade you to subscribe to it, which you can do here for the ridiculously low, heavily subsidized price of $19.95 a year and get immediate online access thrown in to boot. As has become the custom,
»
June 11, 2013 — Scott Johnson
Rich Lowry is the editor of National Review and the author, most recently, of Lincoln Unbound: How an Ambitious Young Railsplitter Saved the American Dream–and How We Can Do It Again, published today. I asked Rich if he would write about the book for Power Line readers on the book’s publication date. Rich has graciously responded as follows: Scott, thanks so much for the invitation to tell your readers a
»
June 9, 2013 — Scott Johnson
Gabriel Schoenfeld was a senior editor of Commentary, where he published such brilliant essays as “Was Kissinger Right?” and “Could September 11 have been averted?” These essays are models of close reading, scrupulous analysis and exacting judgment. Since leaving Commentary Gabe has written books in the same mold. Necessary Secrets: National Security, the Media and the Rule of Law, published in 2010, inspired by events in 2005, is nevertheless as
»
June 5, 2013 — Steven Hayward
“Ideas have consequences” is a favorite conservative slogan. It comes from, or is embodied best in, Richard Weaver’s book by that title, where he launches a spirited attack on the nominalism that pervades modern science and social science alike, at the expense of humane learning and judgment. In my experience very few conservatives have actually read Weaver’s book—I’ll be interested in hearing from Power Line readers who have to see
»
June 3, 2013 — Steven Hayward
I got to thinking a bit more about the item I posted Saturday on how “Scientists Plan to Reduce Greenhouse Gases by Breeding Fartless Cows,” and it suddenly occurred to me—hey wait a minute: I thought environmentalists were against genetic engineering! As it happens, I’m currently reading the galleys for a fabulous book coming out at the end of this month, Pascal Bruckner’s The Fanaticism of the Apocalypse: Save the
»
May 28, 2013 — Scott Johnson
Bret Stephens took up the subject of what he called “China eco-boosterism” in his Wall Street Journal column last week (behind the Journal’s subscription wall). It put those dead pigs that turned up floating down the Whampoa river earlier this year in a cruel, if familiar, American context: Once upon a time the future belonged to China—and China was going to be green. Greener than the hills of olde England.
»
May 16, 2013 — Steven Hayward
We take this brief time out from our ongoing Obama scandal coverage for a detour in the intellectual fever swamps of the left, in particular a bizarre article out in the current issue of The Nation by Corey Robin, author of The Reactionary Mind: From Edmund Burke to Sarah Palin. Nothing subtle about that title. The Nation article, “Nietzsche’s Marginal Children: On Friedrich Hayek” attempts to discredit Hayek’s free market
»
May 12, 2013 — Scott Johnson
Two of my all-time favorite books on historical subjects unraveled the fraught controversies deriving from cases involving Communist spies. In Perjury: The Hiss-Chambers Case, first published in 1978, Allen Weinstein settled the case referred to in the subtitle. Random House published an updated edition in 1997 and the Hoover Institution has just issued a third edition (the one linked above) in honor of the thirty-fifth anniversary of the book’s publication.
»
May 7, 2013 — Scott Johnson
When a left-wing academic wins the recognition of the American Political Science Association, it is at best an event full of sound and fury signifying nothing but the left-wing tilt of academia and the left’s domination of the institutions conferring honors and renown. When a conservative of some stripe achieves such recognition, it suggests (to me) that his or her undeniable excellence has overcome the resistance of the judges. Such
»
April 29, 2013 — Steven Hayward
It’s an axiom of American cosmopolitanism that Europe is far advanced over the United States in terms of social democracy, tolerance, openness, and so forth, and at the pinnacle of European sophistication stands France. The French have it over us on everything from existential filmmaking, wine and cheese, anti-semitism, and embrace of gay . . . —wait, what’s this? A major populist uprising against gay marriage in France, with hundreds
»
April 18, 2013 — Scott Johnson
Naomi Schaefer Riley reviewed The Art of Freedom by the late Earl Shorris in the Wall Street Journal earlier this week. The review and, by the sound of it, the book are not to be missed. As with the controversy over Bowdoin College and our engagement with our alma mater, the subject is our need for true liberal education. Riley writes: Almost two decades ago, Earl Shorris, a novelist and
»
April 7, 2013 — Scott Johnson
Edward Jay Epstein’s new book is The Annals of Unsolved Crime, just published by Melville House. Ed is incapable of writing a dull book, and this one lacks a dull page. Michael Wolff’s USA Today review is in the nature of an appreciation that I share in full. Ed now writes to invite Power Line readers to participate in a series of online programs geared to the book: I will
»
