Books
November 15, 2018 — Scott Johnson
In the third installment of our preview of the new (Fall) issue of the Claremont Review of Books (subscribe here), Angelo Codevilla reviews Julian Jackson’s new one-volume biography of Charles de Gaulle. De Gaulle was one of the great men of our time. As Professor Codevilla writes: Charles de Gaulle famously said of Henri Petain—the French Army’s savior in the Great War who then betrayed his country to the Nazis
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November 14, 2018 — John Hinderaker
That’s what history tells us, anyway. Scott Rasmussen, at his new web site ScottRasmussen.com, offers some reassuring facts: From 2000 to 2016, there were a total of 4,687 statewide elections in the United States, and 26 of them have been close enough to require a recount. Three of those recounts overturned the results declared on election night: a 2004 governor’s race in Washington, a 2006 state auditor’s race in Vermont,
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November 14, 2018 — Scott Johnson
We continue our preview of the new (Fall) issue of the Claremont Review of Books hot off the press. It went to the printer on Monday and should be in the mail to subscribers now. Buy an annual subscription including immediate online access here for the modest price of $19.95. It is an invaluable magazine for those of us who love trustworthy essays on, and reviews of books about, politics,
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November 13, 2018 — Scott Johnson
The Claremont Review of Books is of course the flagship publication of the Claremont Institute. I find in every issue an education in the true understanding of politics and statesmanship. It is my favorite magazine. Purchase an annual subscription here for $19.95 and get immediate online access to the whole thing. The Fall 2018 issue of the CRB has just gone to the printer. The editors have given me a
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November 11, 2018 — Steven Hayward
Scott Johnson joins me this week for a podcast book party for the launch of a collection of columns from “Ammo Grrrll,” Ammo Grrrll Hits the Target. Susan Vass (Ammo Grrrll’s real name when she votes) is a retired stand-up comic, and this episode talks about the terrifying world of comedy club performances, where “you either kill or you die;” why comics are the most needy performance artists—even more than singers, and
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November 11, 2018 — Scott Johnson
Andrew Roberts is the eminent historian and author of the one-volume biography of Churchill, Churchill: Walking with Destiny. By his count, it is the 1010th biography of Churchill. It was just published in the United States this past Tuesday, on election day. I can’t imagine that there is a better one-volume biography by which to reacquaint ourselves with Churchill or to luxuriate in his company for a week or two.
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November 9, 2018 — Scott Johnson
Ammo Grrrll has an important announcement to make (with an exclamation point for emphasis) in BOOK ROLL-OUT, Volume One! She writes: Well, dear readers, this is IT! Remember that great scene in The Jerk with Steve Martin when his nebbish character, Navin R. Johnson, goes crazy with joy because the new phone books had arrived and his name was in them? Well, I am almost as excited! Ammo Grrrll Hits
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October 6, 2018 — Steven Hayward
This week the Power Line Show takes a break from the All-Kavanaugh-All-the-Time format of recent weeks, and sits down with historian William Anthony Hay, author of a brand new biography of Robert Banks Jenkinson. What? You’ve never heard of Robert Banks Jenkinson? You might recognize him better by his “stage name,” Lord Liverpool, Prime Minister of Great Britain from 1812-1827, during the windup of the Napoleonic wars and the War
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September 24, 2018 — Steven Hayward
I’ve never bothered to declaim on the fundamental shoddiness of Howard Zinn’s scandalously popular People’s History of the United States, in part because I simply can’t get through it. Every few pages offer egregious errors of fact and even more tendentious interpretations of facts, such that it is impossible to take seriously. I’d rather read Heidegger or grind my teeth. Certainly an honest history of America (or any country) should
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September 19, 2018 — Steven Hayward
Breaking right now—Ian Buruma is out as editor of the New York Review of Books, a post he has only held for about a year, for the sin of publishing an article by Jian Ghomeshi, a Canadian broadcaster who was acquitted of sexual assault charges in 2016. I hadn’t seen the article yet—my print issue is slow to arrive out here on the left coast—but it appeared online a few days
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September 18, 2018 — Steven Hayward
A couple days back I posted a long item about the presumptions of the contemporary liberal mind that act like garish wallpaper—unnoticed by the residents of the house of liberalism, but jarring to anyone else who steps inside. Along the way I referenced Geoffrey Kabaservice’s recent article in Politico on the abysmal ignorance most liberals have of conservative history, and then went on to the main event—Stanford historian Jennifer Burns’s
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September 16, 2018 — Steven Hayward
Thesis: the presumption of liberalism that they have absolute truth and perfect justice on their side—that theirs is “the side of history”—makes liberals intellectually lazy and unable to think seriously. Now for the evidence. Start with a sympathetic liberal witness, Geoffrey Kabaservice, author of a well-written if not entirely persuasive book a few years back entitled Rule or Ruin: The Downfall of Moderation and the Destruction of the Republican Party.
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August 28, 2018 — Scott Johnson
Today is the official publication date of Art from the Swamp by our late friend Bruce Cole. With the kind permission of Roger Kimball and Encounter Books, we are posting Roger’s brief foreword below. This is one foreword that I wish I did not have to write. When my friend Bruce Cole died suddenly in January 2018, age 79, he left the manuscript of this book about Washington’s patronage of
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August 25, 2018 — Scott Johnson
Despite whatever political disagreements I had with Senator McCain over the years, I am deeply saddened by the news of his death today at the age of 81 from the aggressive form of brain cancer with which he has been contending over the past year. I found the occasions on which I spent time in his company to be a personal highlight. He was an American original. The New York
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August 24, 2018 — John Hinderaker
Yesterday on the Laura Ingraham show, I interviewed Clay Travis, the only person to have been banned by both ESPN and CNN. Travis is one of the country’s best-known sports commentators–the host of a Fox radio show and founder of Outkick the Coverage. Travis is the author of a brand-new book, Republicans Buy Sneakers Too: How the Left Is Ruining Sports With Politics. I had time only to skim the
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August 10, 2018 — Scott Johnson
This week we have previewed three stellar essays from the new (Summer) of the Claremont Review of Books (subscribe here). Forgive me for repeating myself: it is an invaluable magazine for those of us who love trustworthy essays on, and reviews of books about, politics, history, literature, and culture. We conclude our preview this week with a bonus, our own Steve Hayward’s review of Lewis Lehrman’s Lincoln & Churchill: Two
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August 9, 2018 — Scott Johnson
In the third of the three review/essays I chose to preview for Power Line readers from the new (Summer) issue of the Claremont Review of Books (subscribe here), Mark Bauerlein surveys the works of David Horowitz after his turn from the radical left. Bauerlein is professor of English at Emory University; he has not previously written for the CRB, but he was an inspired choice to review my friend David’s
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