Books
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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August 8, 2018 — Scott Johnson
We continue our preview of the new (Summer) issue of the Claremont Review of Books hot off the press. It is 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, history, literature and culture. I reviewed the new
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August 7, 2018 — Scott Johnson
When we previewed the Spring issue of the Claremont Review of Books earlier this year, we celebrated editor Charles Kesler’s receipt of a 2018 Bradley Prize at the 15th annual Bradley Prizes ceremony in Washington. I declared it the week of Charles in his honor. A good time was had by all. The CRB is of course the flagship publication of the Claremont Institute. Charles has turned the CRB into
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July 13, 2018 — John Hinderaker
You may be familiar with Brad Thor, the thriller writer. He is good, and extremely popular. Like all authors of thriller series, you can begin with the fact that it ain’t Shakespeare. But Thor is one of the masters of the craft. Thor’s latest book, out last week, is Spymaster, the 18th in Thor’s Scot Harvath series. Harvath is a counterterrorist operative and pretty much a superhero. Most books in
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July 11, 2018 — Scott Johnson
The news is so painfully stupid that I have gone in search of relief. It occurred to me yesterday that the prominent historian Andrew Roberts has a biography of Winston Churchill forthcoming this fall. I thought to look up the publication date — Roberts’s Churchill: Walking with Destiny will be published by Penguin Books on November 9. Looking for the publication date, I also found that Penguin had just posted
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July 7, 2018 — Scott Johnson
I am leaving Santa Fe this morning after spending a week studying Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man in the St. John’s College Summer Classics program. Other courses offered during week 1 of the Summer Classics program studied Epictetus’s Discourses, Jane Austen’s Emma (my wife took this one), Melville’s short fiction, the biblical book of Exodus, the origins of film noir in the 1940s, the origins of calculus and lessons in leadership
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June 26, 2018 — Scott Johnson
I just finished reading Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison for the first time. I found it to be a challenging, gripping, entertaining novel of the first rank that I want to commend to your attention. Published in 1952, it remains an incredibly timely novel. It lends further support to the contrarian case Jeffrey Hart makes in When the Going Was Good! that the 1950’s represented a high-water mark in American
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June 25, 2018 — Steven Hayward
I have begun building momentum toward my next book, which is one reason why my posts here have become a bit intermittent. I am not yet ready to reveal the topic, or even the working title (though I think it is a good one), because both may well change considerably as things unfold. I also may actually have a co-author for this project, if I can talk her into it.
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June 17, 2018 — Scott Johnson
The cultural left exerts a tyrannical force policing our speech. To take just one small example, witness the case of novelist Lionel Shriver. The cases can be multiplied endlessly. You don’t need my help on this score. The cause of free speech threatens to become the exclusive property of conservatives, it has not already become so. Wherever the left holds sway, free speech is a dying if not dead letter.
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June 4, 2018 — Steven Hayward
Today’s completely unexpected smile comes to us courtesy of the New York Times, of all places. Scott has already noted Bill Clinton’s discomfort in being asked on the Today Show about Monica Lewinsky, which was supposed to be about the novel he has “co-written” with James Patterson. The novel, The President Is Missing, has as its main character “President Jonathan Lincoln Duncan,” which offers a surprisingly close parallel to “William
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