Books
December 9, 2025 — Scott Johnson
Jason DeRusha hosts the Twin Cities drivetime radio show on WCCO-AM (830 radio). He invited me to discuss “Operation Walz” at the top of his second hour yesterday. He wanted to challenge my attribution of blame to the publisher of the Star Tribune — a former Walz administration commissioner — for the flawed Star Tribune story “Trump claims Minnesota lost billions to fraud. The evidence to date isn’t close.” Jason
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December 4, 2025 — Scott Johnson
I’ve subscribed and canceled my subscription to the New York Review of Books in an endless cycle of violence. I am currently in the truce or cancelation phase of the cycle, so I missed Susan Neiman’s NYRB review of David Rieff’s Desire and Fate. I am accordingly grateful that the Wall Street Journal excerpted Neiman’s review in its December 3 Notable and Quotable: Wokeness squib: When the young black poet
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November 18, 2025 — Scott Johnson
Andrew E. Busch is associate director and professor at the Institute of American Civics in the Baker School of Public Policy and Public Affairs at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. He is also a frequent contributor to the Claremont Review of Books. In “The Outsiders,” Professor Busch reviews When the Clock Broke: Con Men, Conspiracists, and How America Cracked Up in the Early 1990s (“One of the Washington Post’s Ten
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November 15, 2025 — Scott Johnson
When I wrote about Sid Caesar and Your Show of Shows earlier this month in “My favorite comedy,” I hadn’t read anything about Caesar since the publication of his memoir Where Have I Been? in 1982. Caesar was the father of sketch comedy on television and a fabulously successful star who flamed out big time after his career in television ended. In his review of Caesar’s memoir Frank Rich recalled
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November 4, 2025 — Scott Johnson
I am sad to note the death of former Vice President Dick Cheney yesterday at the age of 84. The statement released by his family is posted below. #BREAKING: Former VP Dick Cheney passed away last night at 84, his family confirmed in a statement. @WGNNews pic.twitter.com/dKj6YHaWQI — Courtney Spinelli (@CourtSpinelliTV) November 4, 2025 Steve Hayes wrote the biography Cheney (2007). It’s interesting from the first page. I recommend it
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October 24, 2025 — Scott Johnson
Preoccupied with other business this week, I have barely been able to keep up with the headlines. I thought I would post my recommendations in last year’s Claremont Review of Books annual Christmas roundup, which is full of contributions by eminent scholars such as Andrew Roberts, Heather Mac Donald, Dan Mahoney, Amy Wax, and Jean Yarbrough. Slightly supplemented, this is what I had to offer. Washington Post reporter and editor
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October 22, 2025 — Scott Johnson
As I recall, John Rosenthal used to alert us to his writings on race and law, but it’s been a long while since we last heard from him. He has now forwarded us a link to his current Brussels Signal column “German government promotes ‘terrorist’ Antifa with ‘guides for Antifa thugs.’” He reports (links omitted): While some European countries have hastened to follow US President Donald Trump’s example in designating
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October 22, 2025 — Scott Johnson
In the adjacent post I put quotes around the adjective “diverse” in mentioning Thomas Sowell’s “diverse” contributions to the wide range of subjects he has addressed in his books. Is it possible to use the word “diversity” and its cognates unironically? It is possible, but I can’t do it. That is at least in part thanks to National Association of Scholars president Peter Wood’s Diversity: The Invention of a Concept
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October 22, 2025 — Scott Johnson
It appears that the release of Peter Robinson’s most recent interview with Thomas Sowell — posted here yesterday — was timed to coincide with Monday’s celebration of The Sowell Legacy: Ideas, Impact, and Intellectual Freedom. The Hoover Institution event included a lineup of speakers expounding Sowell’s “diverse” contributions to the wide range of subjects covered in his books. Among them: Glenn Loury, Niall Ferguson, Victor Davis Hanson, Coleman Hughes, Steven
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October 21, 2025 — Scott Johnson
Via X I learn that the Hoover Institution has just has just posted Peter Robinson’s special Uncommon Knowledge episode with Thomas Sowell, recorded this past December (video below): This special episode of Uncommon Knowledge with Peter Robinson features our most requested guest: Hoover senior fellow and acclaimed economist and author Dr. Thomas Sowell. But rather than discussing Sowell’s many books, this conversation explores the full arc of Sowell’s life —
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October 20, 2025 — Bill Glahn
I recommend reading the recent Douglas Murray book On Democracies and Death Cults (Harper, April 2025, 197 pages). It covers the war in Gaza and includes much direct coverage of the war by Murray in person. Its April 2025 publication date means that it doesn’t cover the most recent events, including the ceasefire and the war with Iran. But don’t let that put you off. The subtitle is “Israel and
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October 20, 2025 — Scott Johnson
I took an outstanding Latin course on Ovid’s epic poem Metamorphoses from Dartmouth Classics Professor Edward Bradley in the winter of 1970 — that’s me with my old copy of the Metamorphoses in the photo with Professor Bradley at the left. Forty-two years later — in the fall of 2012 — my youngest daughter took introductory Latin with none other than Professor Bradley. Hearing my daughter talk about Professor Bradley
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October 17, 2025 — Scott Johnson
One doesn’t need to be the Oracle of Delphi to foretell the coming of the vile Zohran Mamdani as the next mayor of New York. It’s almost unbelievable. Mamdani’s father is Mahmood Mamdani, the Herbert Lehman Professor of Government and Professor of Anthropology and Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies at — you may have heard — Columbia University. That is all too believable. Yesterday’s Wall Street Journal carried
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October 17, 2025 — Scott Johnson
For the past 12 years I have leaped out of bed with a bounce on Friday mornings to edit Ammo Grrrll’s weekly Thoughts from the Ammo Line. This morning my body rhythms are off. Ammo Grrrll has left the building. I need a laugh. I’m thinking about my Grrrll. Working with Ammo Grrrll over the years made me think about the difficulty of humor in general and of political humor
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October 10, 2025 — Scott Johnson
John Updike compiled three volumes of short stories about his writerly Jewish alter ego Henry Bech. When Bech is awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature — in “Bech and the Bounty of Sweden,” the concluding story of Bech At Bay — Updike posited the headline reporting the news in the New York Daily News: “BECH? WHODAT???” The thought was at the same time self-deprecating and self-aggrandizing. Updike was one of
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October 8, 2025 — Scott Johnson
Eli Sharabi’s memoir of his 491 days in the captivity of Hamas in Gaza has just been published in English by HarperCollins (translated by the prolific X poster and former Israeli government spokesman Eylon Levy). The memoir is titled Hostage. The linked publisher page notes Sharabi’s upcoming speaking appearances in the United States. Bari Weiss interviewed the author in a Free Press podcast that is accessible along with a transcript.
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October 5, 2025 — Scott Johnson
Former Mossad director Yossi Cohen has written the memoir The Sword of Freedom: Israel, Mossad, and the Secret War. The Free Beacon has just published a good review of the memoir this morning under the headline “Memoirs of a Mossad mastermind.” Cohen himself is out promoting the book in interviews that I have found of interest. West Point’s urban warfare expert John Spencer focuses on the Mossad’s astounding 2018 operation
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