Books
September 21, 2021 — Steven Hayward
Terrible news out this morning of the death of Angelo Codevilla, at age 78, reportedly in a car accident. It is hard to overstate the importance and brilliance of Angelo. If you only knew him by his many books and columns (including this 2015 piece he wrote for Power Line on Trump’s significance and prospects), it would be sufficient to establish his greatness. But he was also at the storm
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September 17, 2021 — Scott Johnson
Ammo Grrrll counsels WHEN ANIMALS ATTACK! (With a Groovy Surprise Announcement!). She writes: So I was surfing the Net, trying to avoid actual news of the world, clicking on things like “Try not to gasp when you see Raquel Welch now…”-type stories, which always disappoint and never deliver the bombshells they promise, like a hooker who only wants to cuddle*. And I came across a story about angry cows attacking
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September 4, 2021 — Steven Hayward
Next Tuesday, Encounter Books will publish Glenn Ellmers’ magisterial intellectual biography The Soul of Politics: Harry Jaffa and the Fight for America, and Glenn joins us this week to walk through some of the highlights in the book in what is turning out to be a month-long “Jaffapalooza.” Naturally, we draw Glenn into our running argument about the problems of communicating the proper understanding of the principle of equality in an
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August 14, 2021 — Scott Johnson
I am familiar with Geoffrey Wheatcroft as a respected British journalist and author with a stint in editorial positions on Britain’s Spectator included on his résumé. I am therefore grateful to have Andrew Roberts send up a warning flare on Wheatcroft’s new book, Churchill’s Shadow: The Life and Afterlife of Winston Churchill. The headline of Roberts’s Spectator review poses the question “A Churchill character assassination too far?” Let us remove
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July 26, 2021 — Scott Johnson
Today we wind up our preview of the new (Summer) issue of the Claremont Review of Books. with Bradley Watson’s “Yesterday Once More.” Professor Watson reviews Robert D. Putnam and Shaylyn Romney Garrett’s The Upswing: How America Came Together a Century Ago and How We Can Do It Again. Professor Putman is the prominent Harvard professor and author of Bowling Alone. Garrett describes herself as “a writer, speaker, and changemaker
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July 25, 2021 — Scott Johnson
Merrily we roll along into our fourth preview of the new (Summer) issue of the Claremont Review of Books. It is CRB senior editor Bill Voegeli’s long essay/review “Criminal Negligence.” Reviewing the galley of the new issue to select pieces for Power Line readers last week, I thought the essay might be too long for convenient reading online. On second thought, however, I concluded it makes for perfect weekend reading
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July 24, 2021 — Scott Johnson
We continue our preview of the new (Summer) issue of the Claremont Review of Books with Eric Kaufmann’s timely review of Isabel Wilkerson’s celebrated Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents. Wilkerson is the Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times reporter and, unfortunately, her book meets the moment. This is the book: Wilkerson aims to awaken American blacks to the arbitrary caste hierarchy pressing upon them and to open the eyes of
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July 22, 2021 — Scott Johnson
The Claremont Review of Books has just sent its new (Summer) issue to the printer. I reviewed the issue in galley last week to pick out pieces to roll out for Power Line readers (subscribe here for $19.95 and get online access thrown in for free). This time around I plan to keep the festivities going through Monday with a Sunday edition featuring Bill Voegeli’s long essay/review on crime, and
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July 11, 2021 — Scott Johnson
This weekend comes news that the city of Charlottesville has officially removed the statue of Robert E. Lee from Emancipation Park. Fox News story on the removal of the statue is posted reports: “Viewing areas for the removal of the statues were erected so that bystanders could watch cranes lift the statues from their plinth blocks; the process was nearly complete just before 9 a.m.” Politico reports: “Spectators by the
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July 3, 2021 — Scott Johnson
Northwestern’s Gary Saul Morson takes a look at three new studies of Dostoyevsky in the July 1 New York Review of Books review “Dostoevsky and His Demons.” Subhead: “Three biographers take different approaches to the great writer’s life, which often resembled his most fantastic tales.” It’s an excellent review that takes a brief detour into Freudian analysis of Dostoyevsky. I found this funny: After Dostoevsky’s death, more legends accumulated. Best
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July 2, 2021 — Scott Johnson
David Mikics salutes Thomas Sowell in the outstanding Tablet column “The ‘noble lies’ of the new race politics.” Mikics ranges over some of the leading themes of Sowell’s books on education, race, and culture over the past 50 years to present a brief overview of Sowell’s thought. Sowell turned 91 this week on June 30. Mikics takes the publication of Jason Riley’s new biography of Sowell (see “Talking about Thomas
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July 1, 2021 — Steven Hayward
I met today’s special guest, Gigi Georges, very briefly on a quick visit to Boston College several years ago when I passing through town, and so I was delighted to get a copy of her charming new book, Downeast: Five Maine Girls and the Unseen Story of Rural America in the mail. If you only go by the major media or your local college sociology department, you’d think rural America is
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June 29, 2021 — Steven Hayward
Yesterday afternoon I turned in to the publisher the final, completed manuscript for my next book, M. Stanton Evans: Conservative Wit, Apostle of Freedom (pre-order now!), which means I’ll be turning up more frequently here on Power Line. One of the things it will include as an appendix is “Stan’s Six Rules for Political Combat,” and I thought I might as well share them here now, since we’re locked in a
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June 20, 2021 — Scott Johnson
Bill Clinton has lent his name to the hired hands grinding away in the factory Jonathan Mahler dubbed James Patterson Inc. The factory’s newest production is The President’s Daughter, logging in at 608 pages (and 136 chapters). The publisher touts a quote from the New York Times review by Sarah Lyall: “This novel offers tantalizing clues into the unconscious of Clinton…” Even if life weren’t short, that would probably be
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June 13, 2021 — Scott Johnson
I just finished reading Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America for the first time. I read it over the past two years or so in weekly lunch meetings with my friend Bruce Sanborn. Carleton College’s Professor Larry Cooper, also a friend, served as our preceptor. We used the terrific edition translated, edited, and introduced by Harvey Mansfield and Delba Winthrop that is published by the University of Chicago Press. Like
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June 7, 2021 — Scott Johnson
I subscribe to Jewish Insider’s emailed Daily Kickoff roundup. Most of the time it strikes me as an arm of the Democrats’ press relations team. Occasionally, however, I find an item of interest. One such is Matthew Kassel’s interview with Barack Obama posted this morning in connection with the publication of Obama’s memoir A Promised Land. Saying I found the interview of interest is a slight overstatement. Jewish Insider is
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June 1, 2021 — Paul Mirengoff
I want to second Steve’s praise for A Dubious Expediency: How Race Preferences Damage Higher Education, the fine new essay collection edited by Gail Heriot and Maimon Schwarzschild. The contributors include the two editors, Heather Mac Donald, Peter Kirsanow, and Peter Wood. Gail’s chapter on the impacts of race preferences on their intended direct beneficiaries is must reading, in my opinion. Wouldn’t it be great if the chapter were read
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