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The Decadent Society: How We Became a Victim of Our Own Success (Ross Douthat)Almost always one reads a book of future-looking political theory long before or long...March 28, 2020

Great Society: A New History (Amity Shlaes)A few weeks ago, I watched Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, and Quentin...March 16, 2020

The Throne of Adulis: Red Sea Wars on the Eve of Islam (G. W. Bowersock)When we think of Late Antiquity, we usually think of Rome, either its decline...March 9, 2020

Lee Kuan Yew: The Grand Master’s Insights on China, the United States, and the World (Graham Allison)For Americans who think that so-called liberal democracy is neither, and in any case...February 9, 2020

The Beekeeper’s Lament: How One Man and Half a Billion Honey Bees Help Feed America (Hannah Nordhaus)As befits one who seeks to be a man of wealth and taste (if...January 27, 2020

The Accursed Tower: The Fall of Acre and the End of the Crusades (Roger Crowley)I often say that the Crusades were a high point of Western civilization. And...January 24, 2020

Nemesis: Alcibiades and the Fall of Athens (David Stuttard)We live in an age lacking dynamic leadership. We are instead led, if one...January 14, 2020

Ages of Discord: A Structural-Demographic Analysis of American History (Peter Turchin)I am skeptical of those who predict the future by looking at the past....January 10, 2020

Only Yesterday: An Informal History of the 1920s (Frederick Lewis Allen)Much modern popular history is mendacious, written with an ideological agenda that deliberately distorts,...January 8, 2020

The Value of Everything: Making and Taking in the Global Economy (Mariana Mazzucato)I have long known in my gut that usual measures of social wealth, most...January 6, 2020

The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time (Karl Polanyi)The Great Transformation, published in 1944, is an ambitious book. It attempts two huge...December 26, 2019

Sea People: The Puzzle of Polynesia (Christina Thompson)Interest in Polynesia is not much in fashion nowadays, except for using the islands...December 17, 2019

A Time to Die: Monks on the Threshold of Eternal Life (Nicolas Diat)A Time to Die is a small gem of a book which works on...December 12, 2019

Bullshit Jobs: A Theory (David Graeber)I am trying to understand how human beings create value through their actions, and...December 10, 2019

The Captive Mind (Czeslaw Milosz)We all like to imagine ourselves as heroes. We watch movies, and we instinctively...December 5, 2019

Frederick the Second: Wonder of the World 1194-1250 (Ernst Kantorowicz)This book defies easy characterization. It is, to be sure, a biography of the...November 19, 2019

The World Beyond Your Head: On Becoming an Individual in an Age of Distraction (Matthew B. Crawford)Attacks on digital technology for destroying our capacity for attention are a dime a...November 14, 2019

The Great Leveler: Violence and the History of Inequality from the Stone Age to the Twenty-First Century (Walter Scheidel)Economic inequality is, and has been for several years now, the talk of the...November 11, 2019

Return of the Strong Gods: Nationalism, Populism, and the Future of the West (R. R. Reno)Rusty Reno, editor of the prominent religious conservative journal First Things, here couples an...October 25, 2019

Alexander the Great: His Life and His Mysterious Death (Anthony Everitt)Different eras view Alexander III of Macedon differently. Though always honored as a hugely...October 19, 2019

The New Philistines (Sohrab Ahmari)I am a Sohrab Ahmari fanboy. I endorse his recent full-throated calls for creation...October 9, 2019

Bronze Age Mindset (Bronze Age Pervert)I am fascinated by what is to come. For someone who came of age...September 23, 2019

The Samurai (Shūsaku Endō)The Japanese author Shūsaku Endō is known primarily for his 1966 masterwork, Silence, about...September 20, 2019

A World Split Apart: Commencement Address Delivered at Harvard University, June 8, 1978 (Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn)We in America have long thought highly of ourselves. This feeling crested during the...September 18, 2019

The Memoirs of St. Peter: A New Translation of the Gospel According to Mark (Michael Pakaluk)New translations of the Bible, targeted at a broad audience and done by individuals,...September 10, 2019

The Improbable Wendell Willkie: The Businessman Who Saved the Republican Party and His Country, and Conceived a New World Order (David Levering Lewis)If the word hagiography had not already been coined, it would need to be...September 5, 2019

Making Dystopia: The Strange Rise and Survival of Architectural Barbarism (James Stevens Curl)High architecture, that of grand buildings, is a bridge between God and man, and...August 27, 2019

American Genesis: A Century of Invention and Technological Enthusiasm (Thomas P. Hughes)American Genesis is a cultural history of the grand century of American technology, from...August 21, 2019

Liberty, Equality, Fraternity (James Fitzjames Stephen)Among the many idols of our age, there is one that rules them all:...August 16, 2019

Ibn Khaldun: An Intellectual Biography (Robert Irwin)I generally liked this book, by the erudite Orientalist Robert Irwin, but I am...August 9, 2019

Invisible Planets (Hannu Rajaniemi)I have always loathed the fairy tales of Hans Christian Andersen. Bleak, unhappy, and...August 7, 2019

The Thirty-Year Genocide: Turkey’s Destruction of Its Christian Minorities, 1894–1924 (Benny Morris and Dror Ze’evi)This book, a massive study by two Israeli historians, aspires to answer why and...August 6, 2019

Orbánland: How I Came To Understand Viktor Orbán’s Hungary And The Future Of Europe (Lasse Skytt)I am in an odd position with respect to Hungary. Because I’m half Hungarian,...July 31, 2019

The New Right: A Journey to the Fringe of American Politics (Michael Malice)The American conservative movement is traditionally dated to 1955, the date William F. Buckley...July 27, 2019

Dignity: Seeking Respect in Back Row America (Chris Arnade)Last year, I went to the State Fair, and simply sat and watched the...July 24, 2019

Conformity: The Power of Social Influences (Cass R. Sunstein)In Conformity, Cass Sunstein takes common sense about how decisions are informed, and distorted,...July 20, 2019

On SpaceI am often asked to define my political program, Foundationalism. In essence, this is...July 13, 2019

Laughing Shall I Die: Lives and Deaths of the Great Vikings (Tom Shippey)In these days where man is held to be homo economicus, we are told...July 10, 2019

The Social Media Upheaval (Glenn Harlan Reynolds)Glenn Reynolds, the famous “Instapundit” and a law professor at the University of Tennessee,...July 6, 2019

Unmasking the Administrative State: The Crisis of American Politics in the Twenty-First Century (John Marini)Conservatives have long complained about the administrative state, the monster that swallowed America. Many...July 4, 2019

On CommunitarianismNot everyone buys my belief that we are fast heading, in America, to some...June 29, 2019

Christ the Conqueror of Hell: The Descent into Hades from an Orthodox Perspective (Hilarion Alfeyev)In recent months, I have talked a great deal about politics and current events....June 28, 2019

Theory of the Partisan: Intermediate Commentary on the Concept of the Political (Carl Schmitt)This is a book born of a particular time and place. The time was...June 21, 2019

The War on Normal People: The Truth About America’s Disappearing Jobs and Why Universal Basic Income Is Our Future (Andrew Yang)Just in time for the first Democratic presidential debates, I have finished candidate Andrew...June 19, 2019

Built: The Hidden Stories Behind our Structures (Roma Agrawal)I have always found structural engineering fascinating, though I’m a consumer of the results,...June 17, 2019

Escaping the Russian Bear: An Estonian Girl’s Memoir of Loss and Survival During World War II (Kristina von Rosenvinge)I am fond of pointing out that the safety and security we think we...June 15, 2019

Hired: Undercover in Low-Wage Britain (James Bloodworth)James Bloodworth, an English sometime Trotskyite, has written a book which combines the television...June 13, 2019

Announcement: Narration Podcasts & Typeset PDFsI have often received complaints, or let’s call it feedback, that people would like...June 12, 2019

Roman Warfare (Adrian Goldsworthy)Adrian Goldsworthy is primarily known for lengthy, but highly readable, volumes on Roman history,...June 8, 2019

Kingdoms of Faith: A New History of Islamic Spain (Brian A. Catlos)I read this book, about the history of Spain under Muslim rule, hoping it...May 24, 2019

A Short History of Man: Progress and Decline (Hans-Hermann Hoppe)Hans-Hermann Hoppe!, they cried. Hans-Hermann Hoppe! They told me that if I read his...May 20, 2019

Cræft: An Inquiry Into the Origins and True Meaning of Traditional Crafts (Alexander Langlands)Man’s search for meaning is, in these days of alienation and anomie, always a...May 17, 2019

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (Yuval Noah Harari)Sapiens is a book of history, but its main thrust is philosophical. It explores,...May 15, 2019

Rise and Grind: Outperform, Outwork, and Outhustle Your Way to a More Successful and Rewarding Life (Daymond John)People often ask me, as I stride the halls of power in my custom...April 30, 2019

Richard Nixon: The Life (John Farrell)Richard Nixon’s name is often invoked, but what we hear, for the most part,...April 26, 2019

The 21: A Journey into the Land of Coptic Martyrs (Martin Mosebach)This book is, brought to the temporal sphere, Revelation 20:4. “I saw the souls...April 23, 2019

On QuilletteAs American politics splinters, the artificial limits that have calcified journalism for decades also...April 20, 2019

On Francisco FrancoFew Americans know much about Francisco Franco, leader of the winning side in the...April 16, 2019

From Fire, by Water: My Journey to the Catholic Faith (Sohrab Ahmari)This is not a Muslim conversion memoir. Yes, Islam shows up quite a bit...April 14, 2019

Who We Are and How We Got Here: Ancient DNA and the New Science of the Human Past (David Reich)We have all heard of the fad for DNA ancestry testing. Being a paranoid,...April 11, 2019

Life in a Medieval City (Frances Gies and Joseph Gies)The modern mind is very susceptible to viewing the past as wholly different, and...April 10, 2019

The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements (Eric Hoffer)Eric Hoffer was, Dwight Eisenhower said in 1952, his favorite philosopher. This endorsement made...April 8, 2019

After the Flight 93 Election: The Vote that Saved America and What We Still Have to Lose (Michael Anton)Michael Anton is the man who today best communicates the fractures among the Right....April 7, 2019

Liquid Rules: The Delightful and Dangerous Substances That Flow Through Our Lives (Mark Miodownik)Liquid Rules, like most good books in its genre, explains in an interesting way...April 5, 2019

Franco : A Biography (Paul Preston)I am trying something new—analysis of a topic through multiple simultaneous book reviews. The...April 4, 2019

Franco: Anatomy of a Dictator (Enrique Moradiellos)I am trying something new—analysis of a topic through multiple simultaneous book reviews. The...April 4, 2019

Franco: A Personal and Political Biography (Stanley G. Payne and Jesús Palacios)I am trying something new—analysis of a topic through multiple simultaneous book reviews. The...April 4, 2019

Letters from an American Farmer (J. Hector St. John de Crèvecœur)This is a strange little Colonial-era book that, nonetheless, tells us something about America...March 11, 2019

The Myth of Capitalism: Monopolies and the Death of Competition (Jonathan Tepper)The death of the free market at the hands of monopoly has gotten a...February 27, 2019

I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead: The Dirty Life and Times of Warren Zevon (Crystal Zevon)To the extent you have heard of Warren Zevon, it is probably because David...February 23, 2019

After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory (Alasdair MacIntyre)The poor Enlightenment. Trapped by its inherent contradictions, we in the West find ourselves...February 23, 2019

The Age of Eisenhower: America and the World in the 1950s (William I. Hitchcock)I have always had a fascination with the 1950s, even though they ended many...February 16, 2019

Singapore: Unlikely Power (John Curtis Perry)Singapore is, in some ways, the modern Venice, a maritime city made wealthy by...February 13, 2019

Empty Planet: The Shock of Global Population Decline (Darrell Bricker and John Ibbitson)Anybody who has been paying attention has long grasped the truth: underpopulation, not overpopulation,...February 12, 2019

A Humane Economy: The Social Framework of the Free Market (Wilhelm Röpke)This classic book, by a long-dead and almost-forgotten German economist, is suddenly relevant again....February 3, 2019

A History of Venice (John Julius Norwich)This long but smoothly written book, by the very recently deceased John Julius Norwich,...January 31, 2019

The Fourth Turning: What the Cycles of History Tell Us About America’s Next Rendezvous with Destiny (William Strauss and Neil Howe)I am almost ashamed to review this book. It is like reviewing Fifty Shades...January 22, 2019

Eumeswil (Ernst Jünger)Ernst Jünger’s Eumeswil, one of the famous German’s last works, published when he was...January 21, 2019

On Battlefield VLast year, the giant gaming company Electronic Arts released the latest version of an...January 16, 2019

The Language of the Third Reich (Victor Klemperer)Victor Klemperer is famous today for his diaries covering the Nazi era in Germany....January 11, 2019

48 Hours (William Fortschen)I’ve read all of William Fortschen’s books.  They’re among the best of apocalypse fiction,...January 10, 2019

West Like Lightning: The Brief, Legendary Ride of the Pony Express (Jim DeFelice)My great-grandmother’s cousin, William Pridham, was a rider for the Pony Express.  This is...January 9, 2019

Trotsky: A Biography (Robert Service)I continue to be fascinated by the Bolshevik Revolution, because in its success there...December 29, 2018

The Once and Future Worker: A Vision for the Renewal of Work in America (Oren Cass)I have often complained that human flourishing cannot consist of increases in GDP that...December 24, 2018

Before Church and State: A Study of Social Order in the Sacramental Kingdom of St. Louis IX (Andrew Willard Jones)Like Diogenes searching for an honest man, I spend my days searching for a...December 22, 2018

Building the Benedict Option: A Guide to Gathering Two or Three Together in His Name (Leah Libresco)Creating a social movement is hard.  Creating a social movement of conservatives is even...December 14, 2018

My Father’s Business: The Small-Town Values That Built Dollar General into a Billion-Dollar Company (Cal Turner)In 2002, the law firm for which I worked was involved in the Dollar...December 8, 2018

Stubborn Attachments: A Vision for a Society of Free, Prosperous, and Responsible Individuals (Tyler Cowen)Finally, the age of sophisters and calculators has fully arrived, and its herald is...December 7, 2018

Against the Modern World: Traditionalism and the Secret Intellectual History of the Twentieth Century (Mark Sedgwick)This book is an academic study of an obscure movement, Traditionalism.  The name has...November 30, 2018

Three New Deals: Reflections on Roosevelt’s America, Mussolini’s Italy, and Hitler’s Germany, 1933-1939 (Wolfgang Schivelbusch)This book, a brief work of cultural history, outlines four parallel aspects of three...November 26, 2018

The Republican Workers Party: How the Trump Victory Drove Everyone Crazy, and Why It Was Just What We Needed (F. H. Buckley)Along with left-wing books decrying the supposed Trump-driven decline of democracy, I have been...November 23, 2018

Gun Control in Nazi Occupied-France: Tyranny and Resistance (Stephen P. Halbrook)This is an academic monograph, rather than a work of propaganda or political inspiration....November 21, 2018

The Curse of Bigness: Antitrust in the New Gilded Age (Tim Wu)As the ideological tectonic plates shift in America, many apparently settled matters have become...November 18, 2018

Pale Rider: The Spanish Flu of 1918 and How It Changed the World (Laura Spinney)Since I am an apocalypse monger, but a practical one, I do not worry...November 15, 2018

The Enemy: An Intellectual Portrait of Carl Schmitt (Gopal Balakrishnan)Carl Schmitt, preeminent antiliberal, is that rare thing, the modern political philosopher relevant long...November 12, 2018

On Conservative Bubbles and the Supreme CourtIt has long been an article of faith on the Right, including for me,...November 6, 2018

On the Subjective Mental State of LiberalsIn 1974, philosopher Thomas Nagel famously asked “What Is it Like to be a...November 4, 2018

Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland (Christopher R. Browning)It seems to me that we in the West are like men in a...November 2, 2018

Plutocrats: The Rise of the New Global Super-Rich and the Fall of Everyone Else (Chrystia Freeland)From the cover, I expected this book to be a lightweight documentary version of...October 30, 2018

Ship of Fools: How a Selfish Ruling Class Is Bringing America to the Brink of Revolution (Tucker Carlson)Ship of Fools extends the recent run of books that attack the American ruling...October 28, 2018

The White King: Charles I, Traitor, Murderer, Martyr (Leanda de Lisle)As with Nicholas II, the last ruling Romanov, how we view Charles I is...October 17, 2018

The Forest Passage (Ernst Jünger)Ernst Jünger was one of the more fascinating men of the twentieth century.  Remembered...October 13, 2018

How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us. . . . (Michael Pollan)I have led a boring life, at least as measured by the topics covered...October 12, 2018

Militant Normals: How Regular Americans Are Rebelling Against the Elite to Reclaim Our Democracy (Kurt Schlichter)Militant Normals is an enjoyable read, a rollicking journey with the acid tongue of...October 7, 2018

Life at the Bottom: The Worldview That Makes the Underclass (Theodore Dalrymple)When I am dictator, which hopefully will be any day now, I am going...September 29, 2018

The Saboteur: The Aristocrat Who Became France’s Most Daring Anti-Nazi Commando (Paul Kix)This is the story of a man—Robert de La Rouchefoucauld, scion of one of...September 27, 2018

How Democracies Die (Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt)This may be the worst well-written book I have ever read.  That is, most...September 25, 2018

The Russian Revolution: A New History (Sean McMeekin)I am currently very focused on the ascent to power of Communism in Russia,...September 23, 2018

On Preemptive Apologies by ConservativesA disability afflicts nearly all conservative arguments today.  Rather than being a robust picture...September 19, 2018

On Revolution (Hannah Arendt)This is a book that rewards patience.  The problem is, I am not a...September 13, 2018

Archeofuturism: European Visions of the Post-Catastrophic Age (Guillaume Faye)I sometimes think of my project to pass Reaction through the refiner’s fire as...September 10, 2018

Reason and Revelation in the Middle Ages (Etienne Gilson)Etienne Gilson is one of those men who shot across the sky of the...September 8, 2018

Napoleon: A Life (Andrew Roberts)For some time now, I have been claiming that what we are likely to...September 7, 2018

How Democracy Ends (David Runciman)In the past year, several high-profile books have been published that purport to analyze...August 29, 2018

Coup d’État: A Practical Handbook (Edward Luttwak)Given that zombie survival manuals and similar how-to books are today all the rage,...August 27, 2018

The Garments of Court and Palace: Machiavelli and the World That He Made (Philip Bobbitt)Philip Bobbitt is best known for his earlier work The Shield of Achilles, a...August 23, 2018

The Orthodox Church: An Introduction to Eastern Christianity (Timothy Ware)As I and my family continue our inevitable pivot toward Orthodoxy, I have been...August 18, 2018

The 2020 Commission Report on the North Korean Nuclear Attacks Against the United States (Jeffrey Lewis)For some time now, I have been telling my children, none of whom have...August 8, 2018

From Plato To NATO: The Idea of the West and Its Opponents (David Gress)This is a ferociously erudite book.  The author, David Gress, offers an analysis and...August 7, 2018

Win Bigly: Persuasion in a World Where Facts Don’t Matter (Scott Adams)Would you like to read a book about Scott Adams?  Then this is your...August 5, 2018

On Equality and Liberty as Ultimate EndsOf late, I have repeatedly claimed that the Left’s core goal is to achieve...August 4, 2018

The Storm Before the Storm: The Beginning of the End of the Roman Republic (Mike Duncan)How the Roman Republic ended is well known, even in these undereducated days, but...August 3, 2018

The Common Law (Oliver Wendell Holmes)[Admin’s Note: This is a guest post by Jared, who has a tendency to...August 2, 2018

Right-Wing Critics of American Conservatism (George Hawley)This is an excellent book, doubly excellent in that the writer, George Hawley, has...July 29, 2018

On MeThe Delphic Maxim “know thyself” has never appealed to me.  Why, exactly, is the...July 26, 2018

The Mountain of Silence: A Search for Orthodox Spirituality (Kyriacos C. Markides)In these days of changing ways, so-called liberated days, it is not only political...July 24, 2018

Twelve Who Ruled: The Year of Terror in the French Revolution (R. R. Palmer)Among the many gaping holes in American historical knowledge is any grasp of the...July 23, 2018

The Pastel City (M. John Harrison)As can be seen from a casual glance at my book reviews, while I...July 20, 2018

The Fiery Angel: Art, Culture, Sex, Politics, and the Struggle for the Soul of the West (Michael Walsh)Billed as a continuation, this book is really the chiral image of Michael Walsh’s...June 29, 2018

On the “Dark Enlightenment,” and of Curtis Yarvin / Mencius MoldbugMy project here is to analyze, in the detail required for all necessary understanding,...June 27, 2018

The Ruling Class: How They Corrupted America and What We Can Do About It (Angelo M. Codevilla)I stay away from the shouters, such as Rush Limbaugh and Mark Levin.  Sure,...June 19, 2018

Dream Hoarders: How the American Upper Middle Class Is Leaving Everyone Else in the Dust, Why That Is a Problem, and What to Do About It (Richard V. Reeves)This isn’t a great book, but it’s a starting point for discussions that are...June 14, 2018

The Experience of God: Being, Consciousness, Bliss (David Bentley Hart)Although this is a book written by one of today’s most prominent Christian theologians,...June 13, 2018

The Unintended Reformation: How a Religious Revolution Secularized Society (Brad S. Gregory)Exhaustively documented, and in some ways just exhausting, though at the same time exhilarating,...June 8, 2018

Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup (John Carreyrou)While pretty much everyone in this book who is rich and powerful comes off...May 24, 2018

The Great Revolt: Inside the Populist Coalition Reshaping American Politics (Salena Zito and Brad Todd)Most honest postmortems of Trump’s election are by Democrats focusing on what they missed. ...May 24, 2018

Koh-i-Noor: The History of the World’s Most Infamous Diamond (William Dalrymple and Anita Anand)Koh-i-Noor is not about the diamond, to my disappointment.  Oh, sure, it makes an...May 19, 2018

The Power of the Powerless (Václav Havel)This book was once famous, but was mostly forgotten when Communism died and so-called...May 18, 2018

All on Fire: William Lloyd Garrison and the Abolition of Slavery (Henry Mayer)William Lloyd Garrison is one of those nineteenth-century American figures about whom most people...May 16, 2018

Suicide of the West: How the Rebirth of Tribalism, Populism, Nationalism, and Identity Politics is Destroying American Democracy (Jonah Goldberg)I think this book is meant as a #NeverTrumper manifesto, an attempt to create...May 2, 2018

The Digest of Justinian (Translated by Charles Henry Monro)[Admin’s Note: This is a guest post by Jared, who only recently realised it’s...April 23, 2018

Straight Talk on Trade: Ideas for a Sane World Economy (Dani Rodrik)I find that my hit percentage on economics books is about 50%.  One out...April 21, 2018

The Arms of Krupp 1587-1968 (William Manchester)The late William Manchester, master of twentieth century popular history, made his reputation with...April 20, 2018

Ancient Law: Its Connection with the Early History of Society, and its Relation to Modern Ideas (Henry Sumner Maine)[Admin’s Note: This is a guest post by Jared, who is most definitely not...April 18, 2018

Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry into the Value of Work (Matthew B. Crawford)This is not a book about how you can make more money as a...April 17, 2018

American Cicero: The Life of Charles Carroll (Bradley J. Birzer)Charles Carroll, once famous as the only Catholic signatory of the Declaration of Independence...April 11, 2018

To Change the Church: Pope Francis and the Future of Catholicism (Ross Douthat)Ross Douthat has a job that is, I would guess, either enviable or unpleasant,...March 30, 2018

The Revenge of Analog: Real Things and Why They Matter (David Sax)Although no author likes to have his book lumped with another, this book is...March 28, 2018

Infantry Platoon And Squad ATP 3-21.8 (United States Army)As will surprise nobody who is paying any attention, I am preparing for war. ...March 27, 2018

The Revolt of the Masses (José Ortega y Gasset)Oh, but this is a fascinating book.  Written in 1930 by the Spanish philosopher...March 24, 2018

12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos (Jordan B. Peterson)A friend of mine has been pushing me to look into Jordan Peterson for...March 23, 2018

The Firm, the Market, and the Law (R. H. Coase)[Admin’s Note:  This is a guest post by Jared, a Canadian and grudging dilettante...March 22, 2018

Republics Ancient & Modern, Vol. 2: New Modes & Orders in Early Modern Political Thought (Paul Rahe)To my surprise, I found this to be an extremely topical book, even though...March 14, 2018

How to Die: An Ancient Guide to the End of Life (Seneca & James S. Romm)How to Die, compiled from various writings of the Roman Stoic philosopher Seneca by...March 13, 2018

Can It Happen Here? Authoritarianism in America (Cass Sunstein, ed.)Cass Sunstein has gathered an ensemble cast of today’s intellectual Davoisie (several of whom...March 8, 2018

God Is Not Nice: Rejecting Pop Culture Theology and Discovering the God Worth Living For (Ulrich L. Lehner)As I so often complain, the quality of modern discourse is atrocious.  Probably this...March 1, 2018

Windfall: How the New Energy Abundance Upends Global Politics and Strengthens America’s Power (Meghan O’Sullivan)A few weeks ago, I watched a bad movie on Netflix—The Cloverfield Effect.  This...February 27, 2018

The Judiciary’s Class War (Glenn Harlan Reynolds)In this brief book, or rather pamphlet in the old political, Tom Paine-ish use...February 24, 2018

Lenin: The Man, the Dictator, and the Master of Terror (Victor Sebestyen)When we think of the Soviet Union, we mostly think of it as a...February 24, 2018

Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress (Steven Pinker)As with Steven Pinker’s earlier The Better Angels of Our Nature, of which this...February 16, 2018

The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt (Edmund Morris)This is a forty-year-old biography that is as fresh today as it was in...February 14, 2018

The First Thousand Years: A Global History of Christianity (Robert Louis Wilken)I think Robert Louis Wilken is fantastic, but this is the weakest book of...February 11, 2018

The Wizard and the Prophet: Two Remarkable Scientists and Their Dueling Visions to Shape Tomorrow’s World (Charles C. Mann)This book addresses what is, as far as the material comforts of the modern...February 9, 2018

The Geography of Thought: How Asians and Westerners Think Differently . . . and Why (Richard E. Nisbett)This is a short book with a sweeping thesis.  In essence, the thesis of...February 7, 2018

The Middle Ages (Johannes Fried)It is universally accepted today that the Dark Ages are a myth, roughly as...January 27, 2018

The Square and the Tower: Networks and Power, from the Freemasons to Facebook (Niall Ferguson)This book, by the always fascinating Niall Ferguson (though his main product for sale...January 24, 2018

The Collapse of Complex Societies (Joseph A. Tainter)In the middle part of the twentieth century, before The Walking Dead, the historiography...January 24, 2018

The Betrayal of American Prosperity: Free Market Delusions, America’s Decline, and How We Must Compete in the Post-Dollar Era (Clyde Prestowitz)For decades, “free trade” has been the American orthodoxy across the mainstream of both...January 17, 2018

Reflections on the Revolution In Europe: Immigration, Islam, and the West (Christopher Caldwell)This book, published in 2009, shows its age.  It was written before the mass...January 15, 2018

The Reckless Mind: Intellectuals in Politics (Mark Lilla)Mark Lilla’s books are all polished gems, perfectly and fluidly written, brief yet complete...January 14, 2018

Stasiland: Stories from behind the Berlin Wall (Anna Funder)The wicked reality of Communism has, over the past twenty-five years, been deliberately erased...January 13, 2018

Age of Fracture (Daniel T. Rodgers)When I first started reading this book, which I pulled more or less at...January 12, 2018

Mormon Country (Wallace Stegner)Wallace Stegner, writer about the American West, is famous mostly for his novel Angle...December 19, 2017

Why Liberalism Failed (Patrick J. Deneen)Poor Francis Fukuyama.  He has been a punching bag ever since he unwisely declared...December 19, 2017

Discourses on Livy (Niccolò Machiavelli)Niccolò Machiavelli is known today for two things: the adjective “Machiavellian,” and the book...December 10, 2017

Red Platoon: A True Story of American Valor (Clinton Romesha)Americans have always liked fighting stories: autobiographical and third person, fictional and non-fictional.  From...December 7, 2017

The Third Reich at War (Richard Evans)Reading this third volume of Richard Evans’s massive study of the Third Reich, scenes...December 6, 2017

The Punic Wars (Adrian Goldsworthy)The study of history is dead.  That may seem an odd assertion, given that...November 28, 2017

Naked Economics (Charles Wheelan)Sometimes I think it is a fool’s errand to study economics and hope for...November 23, 2017

How to be a Conservative (Roger Scruton)English traditional conservatives today exhibit a depressed passivity.  They ruminate, probably with a glass...November 17, 2017

The Politics of Resentment: Rural Consciousness in Wisconsin and the Rise of Scott Walker (Katherine J. Cramer)In the past few years, a variety of liberal academics have adopted a Gorillas...November 15, 2017

The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion (Jonathan Haidt)In today’s world, discussion about morals is a lost art.  In part, this is...November 14, 2017

The Gunpowder Age: China, Military Innovation, and the Rise of the West in World History (Tonio Andrade)The Gunpowder Age succeeds in its lesser goal, which is convincing the reader that...November 9, 2017

Leviathan Wakes (James S. A. Corey)Leviathan Wakes is extremely well written, with a tight plot and carefully chosen prose. ...November 3, 2017

Europe Since 1989: A History (Philipp Ther)This book’s title is a lie, as is most of what little history it...November 2, 2017

Republican Like Me: How I Left the Liberal Bubble and Learned to Love the Right (Ken Stern)Republican Like Me belongs to a certain phenotype, which we can call the “anti-jeremiad.” ...October 27, 2017

Augustus: First Emperor of Rome (Adrian Goldsworthy)This review will combine something very old with something very new.  The very old,...October 25, 2017

Edwin Arlington Robinson: A Poet’s Life (Scott Donaldson)I have zero creative talent.  The pinnacle of my own ability to draw is...October 17, 2017

The Third Reich in Power (Richard J. Evans)This is the second of three volumes in Richard Evans’s massive history of the...October 14, 2017

Theology for a Troubled Believer (Diogenes Allen)From its title, Theology for a Troubled Believer seems directed at people having a...October 11, 2017

The Shipwrecked Mind (Mark Lilla)Let us talk of many things, as the Walrus said, but primarily, of neoreaction. ...October 7, 2017

Colloquy: On Whether Identity Politics Defines Today’s Democrats[This is a colloquy resulting from my earlier review of Mark Lilla’s The Once and...October 4, 2017

Five Children and It (E. Nesbit)Five Children and It is a book that resonates on two levels.  On one...October 3, 2017

The Crisis of Multiculturalism in Europe (Rita Chin)I oppose the theory and practice of Euro-multiculturalism as both stupid and suicidal.  Thus,...October 3, 2017

The Myth of the Andalusian Paradise (Darío Fernández-Morera)This book is ferociously erudite, but tinged with obsession.  True, nearly all modern academic...September 26, 2017

Makers and Takers (Rana Foroohar)Imprisoned inside this book is a good book screaming to get out.  Buried alive,...September 25, 2017

The Idea Factory (Jon Gertner)Jon Gertner’s The Idea Factory is a mild corrective to the commonly found anguished...September 21, 2017

World Without Mind: The Existential Threat of Big Tech (Franklin Foer)Franklin Foer’s World Without Mind is an excellent book.  It identifies important problems, ties...September 16, 2017

The English and Their History (Robert Tombs)This book is a massive history of the English, written by an English expert...September 14, 2017

The Strange Death of Europe (Douglas Murray)Mass immigration to Europe is one of those topics about which there is little...September 8, 2017

The Earth Is Weeping (Peter Cozzens)The Earth Is Weeping offers an almost painfully even-handed look at the conflicts between...September 1, 2017

The Once and Future Liberal (Mark Lilla)Mark Lilla has been a bad, bad boy.  He has dared to point out...August 30, 2017

The CEO Pay Machine (Steven Clifford)I’ve been complaining about the topic of this book for at least fifteen years. ...August 24, 2017

The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America (Richard Rothstein)Some years ago, I lived for a time in Oak Park, Illinois.  Oak Park...August 15, 2017

Against the Grain: A Deep History of the Earliest States (James C. Scott)This outstanding book, by the anarchist-tending academic James C. Scott, might be (but isn’t)...August 9, 2017

On Rebellion[This post duplicates my review of Captain Blood, without the book-specific parts.  I am...August 7, 2017

Captain Blood (Rafael Sabatini)Captain Blood, to the extent it is mentioned today, is remembered as a 1935...August 2, 2017

Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945 (Tony Judt)Postwar, by the late Tony Judt, is the type of book for which the...August 1, 2017

At the Edge of the World: The Heroic Century of the French Foreign Legion (Jean-Vincent Blanchard)Everyone knows about the French Foreign Legion.  Mostly, though, our knowledge ranges from impressionistic...August 1, 2017

Flash of Genius (John Seabrook)This title story of this book tells of Bob Kearns, tinkering inventor of the...July 31, 2017

Hue 1968 (Mark Bowden)I have a confession to make.  The first history I learned about the Vietnam...July 30, 2017

Born to Run (Bruce Springsteen)I’ve always liked Bruce Springsteen, but never knew much about him beyond what could...July 26, 2017

Devil’s Bargain: Steve Bannon, Donald Trump, and the Storming of the Presidency (Joshua Green)From when he won the Republican nomination, until Election Night, I told anyone who...July 24, 2017

Naked Money (Charles Wheelan)Naked Money, by Charles Wheelan, has a primary goal and two secondary goals.  The...July 21, 2017

Scars of Independence (Holger Hoock)Scars of Independence should carry a big banner across its front, shouting “New &...July 20, 2017

How Civilizations Die (David Goldman)I have read David Goldman for a long time, under his alter ego, Spengler,...July 19, 2017

Armada (Ernest Cline)Most bad books have some redeeming feature.  This one doesn’t.  Ernest Cline’s first book,...July 18, 2017

Agents of Empire: Knights, Corsairs, Jesuits, and Spies in the Sixteenth-Century Mediterranean World (Noel Malcolm)When I think about Albania, which is not often, I usually think about Communist...June 27, 2017

Augustine: Conversions to Confessions (Robin Lane Fox)Most of us, or so I like to think in order to feel better...June 23, 2017

Cake: A Slice of History (Alysa Levene)I’ve always liked food history—maybe because as a small child I spent quite a...June 22, 2017

The Great Convergence: Information Technology and the New Globalization (Richard Baldwin)This book mostly claims to be a book about “globalization,” today’s trendy word, but...June 21, 2017

Indian Country (Kurt Schlichter)In the distant past—five months ago—I believed our country could heal its divisions.  Sure,...June 17, 2017

Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides’s Trap? (Graham Allison)Graham Allison, a Harvard professor and sometime government functionary, is clearly a man who...June 14, 2017

The Life and Prayers of Saint Joan of Arc (Wyatt North)This book is pure hagiography.  While I suppose hagiography has its uses, mostly to...June 12, 2017

The Face of Water: A Translator on Beauty and Meaning in the Bible (Sarah Ruden)Sarah Ruden may be my favorite author.  It’s not that I’ve read everything she’s...June 8, 2017

Nature’s Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West (William Cronon)This is a fantastic book that well deserves its reputation as a classic.  Part...June 7, 2017

Churchill & Orwell (Thomas Ricks)The heroes of every age are often not seen as heroes during their lives,...June 6, 2017

Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right (Arlie Hochschild)Arlie Hochschild has gone the extra mile, and then some, to understand conservatives.  I...May 24, 2017

White Working Class (Joan Williams)Joan Williams wants to “Overcome Class Cluelessness in America.”  This is an admirable goal,...May 18, 2017

The Great Divergence (Kenneth Pomeranz)It is hardly news that the West has led the world economically for the...May 17, 2017

Resurrecting The Idea Of A Christian Society (R. R. Reno)Already before I began writing this review, I was worn out reading books with...May 10, 2017

A History of Islamic Societies (Ira Lapidus)This is a famous book.  Together with Marshall Hodgson’s three-volume The Venture of Islam,...May 5, 2017

The Age of Reagan: The Conservative Counterrevolution: 1980-1989 (Steven Hayward)This is the second volume of historian Steven Hayward’s voluminous biography of Ronald Reagan. ...May 3, 2017

How We Got To Now (Steven Johnson)How We Got To Now is competent enough, but it feels threadbare.  It feels...April 29, 2017

Average Is Over: Powering America Beyond the Age of the Great Stagnation (Tyler Cowen)Tyler Cowen is a popular economist, known for an influential blog (Marginal Revolution) and...April 26, 2017

Age of Anger: A History of the Present (Pankaj Mishra)Twenty years ago, that liberal Baal, philosopher Martha Nussbaum, assigned me to read The...April 24, 2017

The Abolition of Britain (Peter Hitchens)I did not like this book as much as I expected.  In part that’s...April 15, 2017

The Mandibles: A Family, 2029-2047 (Lionel Shriver)I’m a sucker for apocalyptic fiction.  Probably, similar to many doom-and-gloom conservatives, deep down...April 13, 2017

The End of Europe: Dictators, Demagogues, and the Coming Dark Age (James Kirchick)This is a silly and shallow book.  But it is not worthless, because it...April 11, 2017

Food City (Joy Santlofer)Food City, by the late Joy Santlofer, shows us the amazing history of manufacturing,...March 23, 2017

Destined to Reign: The Secret to Effortless Success, Wholeness and Victorious Living (Joseph Prince)This is not the sort of book I normally read.  It is spiritual fluff...March 23, 2017

The Benedict Option: A Strategy for Christians in a Post-Christian Nation (Rod Dreher)The Benedict Option is, as I expected, an outstanding book.  Rod Dreher has definitively...March 14, 2017

Memoirs of a Superfluous Man (Albert Jay Nock)Many years ago, I belonged to a debating society, which, among other activities, sponsored...March 13, 2017

Blitzed: Drugs in the Third Reich (Norman Ohler)This book failed in the two goals I set for it, either of which...March 12, 2017

The Christians As The Romans Saw Them (Robert Louis Wilken)We tend to think of Christianity’s global spread as somehow predestined.  A little thought,...March 10, 2017

Out of the Ashes: Rebuilding American Culture (Anthony Esolen)Reading this book is like wearing sackcloth and heaping ashes on your head. It...March 8, 2017

Conserving America? (Patrick Deneen)This book, a book of essays, is effectively a companion to Ryszard Legutko’s The...March 5, 2017

Colloquy: Of The Possibilities of Comity, The Suppression of Speech, Identity, And Humanity[This colloquy sprang from a Facebook discussion (largely, but not always, an oxymoron) about...March 4, 2017

How An Economy Grows And Why It Crashes (Peter Schiff)For the past few years, I’ve started thinking of basic economics through the prism...March 3, 2017

The Coming of the Third Reich (Richard Evans)For the past few months, we have been subjected to a tedious, hysterical stream...March 1, 2017

Strangers In A Strange Land (Charles Chaput)This is a self-help book.  I don’t mean it’s to be found in the...February 27, 2017

Tamerlane: Sword of Islam, Conqueror of the World (Justin Marozzi)I, and many others, have been exhausted in recent months by the nonstop political...February 24, 2017

The Rise and Fall of American Growth (Robert Gordon)This book is just not very good.  I was excited to read The Rise...February 18, 2017

The Weapon Shops of Isher (A.E. van Vogt)The right to be armed is the right to be free!  This call, like...February 16, 2017

The Age of Reagan: The Fall of the Old Liberal Order: 1964-1980 (Steven Hayward)I read The Age of Reagan, the first volume of a massive two-volume biography,...February 15, 2017

The Golden Key (George MacDonald)This is a very famous book, not quite children’s fairy tale and not quite...February 11, 2017

The Almost Nearly Perfect People (Michael Booth)Published in 2014, this book has an eerie vibe, redolent of a past that...February 9, 2017

Colloquy: On Christian Duty As Related To President Trump’s Executive Order On Immigration[This is designed to be a colloquy regarding the recent executive order by President...February 8, 2017

The Great Heresies (Hilaire Belloc)For no reason that is fully clear to me, I have always been fascinated...February 7, 2017

Colloquy: On Global Warming[This is a back-and-forth to a response to that portion of my review of...February 5, 2017

Nobody Likes A Goblin (Ben Hatke)This is an outstanding children’s book.  We got it for our children for Christmas...February 2, 2017

Milk: The Surprising Story of Milk Through the Ages (Anne Mendelson)I hate milk. I find many of the recipes in this book frankly loathsome,...January 30, 2017

The Worm Ouroboros (Eric Rücker Eddison)This is a strange book.  It has always been a strange book, even when...January 25, 2017

The Demon In Democracy (Ryszard Legutko)There is a scene in Thomas Mann’s Buddenbrooks, in which a character comes across...January 19, 2017

On The Growth In Political Intolerance; Or, The Days of RageAs we all know, one of the results of the rise of social media...January 18, 2017

Fools, Frauds and Firebrands: Thinkers of the New Left (Roger Scruton)It is easy enough to know what the Right thinks, and why.  Half a...January 17, 2017

On the Trail of Inca Gold (Hector Lazo)Every American generation has its young adult fiction, and we can all agree it...January 16, 2017

Conquests and Cultures (Thomas Sowell)Last month, in December 2016, maybe as a Christmas gift to himself, Thomas Sowell...January 12, 2017

The Attention Merchants (Tim Wu)Tim Wu’s The Attention Merchants is part history and part social analysis. The history...January 9, 2017

Intellectual Curiosity and the Scientific Revolution (Toby Huff)Toby Huff’s Intellectual Curiosity and the Scientific Revolution is in many ways a companion...January 5, 2017

The Final Day (William Fortschen)I did not have high hopes for this book. But I was wrong—this is...January 4, 2017

Charlemagne (Johannes Fried)“Charlemagne” is a rare sort of work—a satisfying biography about a historical figure about...January 2, 2017

The Silk Roads: A New History of the World (Peter Frankopan)The East, what in a more direct and confident time we called the Orient,...January 1, 2017

Is Administrative Law Unlawful? (Philip Hamburger)Administrative law—the delegation by the legislature of legislative and judicial power to the executive—is...December 28, 2016

Light Infantry Tactics: For Small Teams (Christopher Larsen)In these latter days, many people in flyover country have been preparing for the...December 28, 2016

Colloquy: Why Conservatives Don’t Care About “Russian Email Hacks”[Italics are my interlocutor; regular text is me.] I honestly don’t understand this “Russian...December 16, 2016

What Washington Gets Wrong (Jennifer Bachner and Benjamin Ginsberg)“What Washington Gets Wrong” shows, by polling statistics, what we all know already. Namely,...December 13, 2016

C. S. Lewis on Politics and the Natural Law (Justin Buckley Dyer and Micah J. Watson)“C.S. Lewis on Politics and the Natural Law” collects in one short book the...December 9, 2016

Does Political Correctness Exist Among Conservatives?[This is a reaction requested from me regarding a Washington Post article, by Alex Nowrasteh, titled...December 8, 2016

Albion’s Seed: Four British Folkways in America (David Hackett Fischer)“Albion’s Seed” is a classic work of ethnography. It is refreshing to read because...November 29, 2016

The High House (James Stoddard)“The High House” is a startlingly original book. It is, in some ways, young...November 22, 2016

The Battle of Salamis (Barry Strauss)Barry Strauss is a master of the “you are there” style of popular historical...November 22, 2016

Deep Survival (Laurence Gonzales)I read Laurence Gonzales’ “Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, And Why” as a...November 15, 2016

The Unthinkable: Who Survives When Disaster Strikes—and Why (Amanda Ripley)“The Unthinkable” is basically a self-improvement manual. But the promised self-improvement isn’t better organization,...November 9, 2016

Colloquy: Not-For-Profits Are Not Inherently Virtuous and “Giving Back” Is A Stupid Term[This is a colloquy between myself and a  friend of mine.  Italics are her;...November 7, 2016

Gentlemen’s Blood (Barbara Holland)Barbara Holland’s “Gentlemen’s Blood” is a series of jaunty anecdotes about dueling through time...October 28, 2016

Render Unto Caesar (Charles Chaput)Charles Chaput, now archbishop of Philadelphia, is probably the most prominent traditionally orthodox Catholic...October 26, 2016

The Romanovs (Simon Sebag Montefiore)Most of us have only the dimmest idea of Russian history prior to the...October 20, 2016

The Dragons of Expectation (Robert Conquest)“The Dragons of Expectation,” subtitled “Reality and Delusion in the Course of History,” is...October 18, 2016

Wiring Simplified: Based on the 2014 National Electrical Code (H.P. Richter et al.)I have gradually come to realize the limitations of the Internet for providing information...October 16, 2016

Considerations on the Causes of the Greatness of the Romans and their Decline (Montesquieu)In more educated times, “Considerations” was a famous book, regarded as the progenitor of...October 11, 2016

A Torch Kept Lit (William F. Buckley)Of late, I have noticed much creeping, or rather galloping, nostalgia among National Review-type...October 8, 2016

The Screwtape Letters (C.S. Lewis)Reviewing anything by C.S. Lewis seems presumptuous. Between the fame and erudition of the...October 2, 2016

People’s Republic (Kurt Schlichter)“People’s Republic” is part satire, part warning and part what I would call “conservative...September 28, 2016

Welder’s Handbook (Richard Finch)“Welder’s Handbook” is a good introductory text to basic welding. Yes, it does not...September 25, 2016

Glock: The Rise of America’s Gun (Paul Barrett)“Glock” is that rarest of beasts—a mainstream writing in which the author makes zero...September 21, 2016

Against Democracy (Jason Brennan)Jason Brennan is The Man Who Was Born Yesterday. His book is incisive, insightful,...September 20, 2016

Capital without Borders: Wealth Managers and the One Percent (Brooke Harrington)I read “Capital Without Borders,” a book on wealth management, because I wanted a...September 11, 2016

Wealth, Poverty and Politics (2nd Edition) (Thomas Sowell)Thomas Sowell’s latest book, published in 2015 and now revised a year later, is...August 28, 2016

The Year’s Best Science Fiction: Thirty-Third Annual Collection (Gardner Dozois ed.)I have read all of the Dozois annual collections. And this one, the thirty-third,...August 23, 2016

Paper (Mark Kurlansky)“Paper” is a book of interesting anecdotes, loosely linked by its theme. At the...August 22, 2016

Russell Kirk: American Conservative (Bradley Birzer)Once upon a time, it seemed that Russell Kirk might, as he so devoutly...August 16, 2016

Republics Ancient & Modern, Vol. 1: The Ancien Régime in Classical Greece (Paul Rahe)In a sense, this is an introductory work. Not a work for beginners, but...August 12, 2016

The Evolution of Everything: How New Ideas Emerge (Matt Ridley)“The Evolution Of Everything” is a hard book to review, because it has no...August 10, 2016

Political Order and Political Decay: From the Industrial Revolution to the Globalization of Democracy (Francis Fukuyama)“Political Order And Political Decay” is the second volume of Francis Fukuyama’s two-book exploration...August 8, 2016

Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community (Robert Putnam)This is a famous book, but “Bowling Alone” was not what I expected. What...August 2, 2016

It’s Dangerous to Believe: Religious Freedom and Its Enemies (Mary Eberstadt)Mary Eberstadt’s It’s Dangerous To Believe offers very clear analysis and very wrong recommendations....July 28, 2016

Facing Violence: Preparing for the Unexpected (Rory Miller)While “Facing Violence” is an interesting book, it seems to me its practical usefulness...July 21, 2016

Trials of the Earth (Mary Hamilton)St. Paul says in Second Thessalonians (or as Donald Trump would have it, “Two...July 20, 2016

Popular Economics (John Tamny)“Popular Economics” is a well-written, glib primer. In some ways, it’s a dumbed-down version...July 15, 2016

The Scandal of Money (George Gilder)George Gilder is famous among conservatives. For decades, I have heard positive things about...July 13, 2016

The Long Recessional: The Imperial Life of Rudyard Kipling (David Gilmour)Rudyard Kipling, when remembered today, is usually snidely dismissed as a jingoistic Victorian, or...July 7, 2016

Tribe (Sebastian Junger)Sebastian Junger’s “Tribe” is in some ways an original book, and in some ways...July 4, 2016

1177 B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsed (Eric Cline)“1177 B.C.” is a worthwhile book, but it fails to deliver on its promises....July 4, 2016

When in the Course of Human Events: Arguing the Case for Southern Secession (Charles Adams)This book has a not-new thesis, beloved by Marxists and Charles Beard: that economic...July 1, 2016

The Apple Grower: A Guide for the Organic Orchardist (Michael Phillips)“The Apple Grower” is an excellent book, but not one for the casual apple...June 30, 2016

Hypatia of Alexandria (Maria Dzielska)In today’s popular culture, Hypatia, the woman philosopher/mathematician of the Fifth Century A.D., is...June 30, 2016

The Small-Scale Poultry Flock (Harvey Ussery)This may be the best “how to” book I have ever read, at least...June 28, 2016

Keeping Chickens with Ashley English (Ashley English)I read this book because my wife and I have decided to keep chickens. ...June 20, 2016

A Year In Provence (Peter Mayle)“A Year In Provence” is the meringue of books. It is cloyingly sweet, airily...June 19, 2016

Liberal Fascism (Jonah Goldberg)“Liberal Fascism” is really a history book, not the book of political analysis I...June 18, 2016

Colloquy: Why Vote For Trump, and What Do Conservatives Want?[Italics are my interlocutor; regular text is me.] Hi Charles, I’ve been pondering the...June 16, 2016

The Fractured Republic: Renewing America’s Social Contract in the Age of Individualism (Yuval Levin)“The Fractured Republic” is a fantastically original book. It is very optimistic, yet clear-eyed,...June 8, 2016

The Three-Body Problem (Cixin Liu)“The Three-Body Problem” is a science fiction novel, of the “hard” subgenre, that has...June 6, 2016

SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome (Mary Beard)“SPQR” is proof that it’s possible to write something interesting where thousands of books...April 28, 2016

The Turmoil (Booth Tarkington)“The Turmoil” is a book little read nowadays, and would probably be a book...April 26, 2016

Laurus (Eugene Vodolazkin)I read “Laurus” because Rod Dreher told me to, on his blog at least,...April 14, 2016

Dangerous Visions (Harlan Ellison ed.)“Dangerous Visions” is a semi-legendary compilation of science fiction stories, originally published in 1967,...April 10, 2016

The Origins of Political Order: From Prehuman Times to the French Revolution (Francis Fukuyama)Like Daniel Burnham, Francis Fukuyama makes no small plans. “The Origins of Political Order”...March 31, 2016

The Knowledge: How to Rebuild Civilization in the Aftermath of a Cataclysm (Lewis Dartnell)“The Knowledge” is meant as an assist to the human race. But to properly...March 30, 2016

Rivers of Gold: The Rise of the Spanish Empire, from Columbus to Magellan (Hugh Thomas)“Rivers Of Gold” is not for the faint of heart. If you are looking...March 24, 2016

Proof: The Science of Booze (Adam Rogers)“Proof” is an outstanding book. Neither too short nor too long for its topic,...March 21, 2016

The Richest Man Who Ever Lived (Greg Steinmetz)The Richest Man Who Ever Lived is pop history, designed to appeal to modern...March 15, 2016

The Devil’s Pleasure Palace (Michael Walsh)I read this book because it seemed like it would be an interesting companion...March 13, 2016

Lights Out (Ted Koppel)“Lights Out” is an introductory work to the topic of US electrical grid vulnerability....March 6, 2016

Team of Rivals (Doris Kearns Goodwin)“Team Of Rivals” is, of course, an excellent biography of Abraham Lincoln. It is...February 23, 2016

The Bloody White Baron (James Palmer)“The Bloody White Baron” is one of those fascinating short books about a nasty...February 22, 2016

The Geography of Genius (Eric Weiner)“The Geography of Genius” is a bit of a puzzle. The author’s stated goal...February 19, 2016

Traditional Construction Patterns (Stephen Mouzon)Although the author, Stephen Mouzon, would doubtless not be happy to hear it, “Traditional...February 16, 2016

Suicide of the West (James Burnham)“Suicide of the West,” subtitled “An Essay on the Meaning and Destiny of Liberalism,”...February 15, 2016

The End is Nigh (Matthew Mather ed.)This is a neat little set of apocalypse stories. While I haven’t read the...February 13, 2016

The Trojan War: A New History (Barry Strauss)“The Trojan War” is an interesting contrast to some of Barry Strauss’s other works....February 7, 2016

Get Your House Right (Marianne Cusato)How can you go wrong with an architecture book where the forward is written...February 6, 2016

The Greatship (Robert Reed)Since I was a small child, I have read science fiction, and lots of...February 6, 2016

Curzon: Imperial Statesman (David Gilmour)“Curzon” is one of those typically British biographies of dead political figures. Such biographies...February 1, 2016

Dies Irae (William Fortschen)This is a book written on two levels. It works on one, and not...January 31, 2016

The Diversity Myth (Peter Thiel and David Sacks)“The Diversity Myth” is a twenty-year-old book that nobody would remember, despite its many...January 30, 2016

Appetite For America (Stephen Fried)“Appetite For America” is that rare book that combines the best of a history...January 25, 2016

Good Profit (Charles Koch)Holy crap, this is a bad book. I like the Koch brothers. I agree...January 24, 2016

Miles Gone By: A Literary Autobiography (William F. Buckley)“Miles Gone By” is a good, but somewhat disorienting, book. It’s disorienting, first, because...November 16, 2015

Unfinished Business: Women Men Work Family (Anne-Marie Slaughter)Anne-Marie Slaughter’s book is compelling. But too frequently it relies on unsupported, and in...November 12, 2015

Dreamland (Sam Quinones)“Dreamland” is about opiate addition, and about an America most of us don’t see....November 3, 2015

One Year After (William Fortschen)This is just not a very good book. It’s not a dreadful book. Just...November 3, 2015

The Blueprint (Witwer & Schrager)“The Blueprint” is well written. But its predictions have now been repeatedly falsified, and...October 26, 2015

Politics in the Ancient World (M.I. Finley)“Politics In The Ancient World” is a short work, a compilation and modification of...September 28, 2015

The Great Debate: Edmund Burke, Thomas Paine, and the Birth of Right and Left (Yuval Levin)This is a clarifying book. In today’s Kardashian Kulture, even the well-informed, who know...September 16, 2015

The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression (Amity Shlaes)“The Forgotten Man” is both history and warning. It’s a great social/political history of...September 10, 2015

The Rise of Early Modern Science: Islam, China and the West (Toby Huff)This is a magisterial book, pulling together innumerable threads into a coherent, cohesive whole....September 7, 2015

Curry: A Global History (Colleen Taylor Sen)This short book is an interesting read, even if it’s really just a summary...September 6, 2015

The Spirit of Early Christian Thought (Robert Louis Wilken)This book is not a polemic or a book of apologetics; it is instead...August 31, 2015

The Edge of the World: A Cultural History of the North Sea (Michael Pye)“The Edge Of The World” is an ambitious book. Its subtitle is “A Cultural...August 24, 2015

Coming Apart (Charles Murray)This is a deeply pessimistic book. Charles Murray warns, Cassandra-like, of the ill effects...August 23, 2015

The Death of Caesar (Barry Strauss)“The Death of Caesar” is Barry Strauss’s latest work on the politics and warfare...August 20, 2015

By the People: Rebuilding Liberty Without Permission (Charles Murray)I am a criminal. More precisely, I am the kind of criminal that Charles...August 17, 2015

The White Man’s Burden: Why the West’s Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good (William Easterly)“The White Man’s Burden,” despite its inflammatory title, is a measured analysis of the...August 11, 2015

Masters of Command (Barry Strauss)This is a great introduction to three of the most important historical figures of...August 10, 2015

The Girl With All The Gifts (M. R. Carey)While it’s in many ways a typical version of the apocalyptic genre currently fashionable,...August 9, 2015

The Autobiography of Calvin Coolidge (Calvin Coolidge)I read this book after reading Amity Shlaes’s “Coolidge,” in part because Shlaes more...August 9, 2015

Comandante: Hugo Chávez’s Venezuela (Rory Carroll)In the United States, most of us glimpse Venezuela in flashes. We know that...August 5, 2015

Empire of Cotton: A Global History (Sven Beckert)“Empire Of Cotton” is really two books. First, it’s an exhaustive exposition of the...August 4, 2015

The Arab Mind (Raphael Patai)Looking at other reviews of “The Arab Mind,” it appears readers divide into two...August 3, 2015

Defying Hitler: A Memoir (Sebastian Haffner)“Defying Hitler” is one of those relatively few books (available widely in English at...July 26, 2015

How Dante Can Save Your Life (Rod Dreher)Rod Dreher’s latest book is a mix of self-help advice, autobiography, and literary exposition....July 26, 2015

This Time Is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly (Reinhart & Rogoff)Unfortunately, this book is nearly unreadable. Oh, I’m sure it’s readable if you’re a...July 22, 2015

The Tyranny of Experts: Economists, Dictators, and the Forgotten Rights of the Poor (William Easterly)William Easterly is a leading critic of traditional approaches to development—that is, of traditional...July 22, 2015

Coolidge (Amity Shlaes)My conclusion, after reading this book, is that Calvin Coolidge is grossly under-rated. Actually,...July 18, 2015

Thomas Jefferson: Author of America (Christopher Hitchens)Typical incisive Hitchens, but marred by his anti-religious obsessions and biases, along with some...July 7, 2015

Ulysses S. Grant: The Unlikely Hero (Michael Korda)This is a slight book, but it does not claim to be more. As...July 7, 2015

The Better Angels of Our Nature (Steven Pinker)This is a sprawling mess of a book. Flashes of arguably brilliant insight alternate...July 6, 2015

A Study of History, Vol. 1: Abridgement of Volumes I-VI (Arnold Toynbee)I really wanted to like this book. It’s regarded as a classic, from a...June 11, 2015

Conservative Insurgency (Kurt Schlichter)Conservative Insurgency is that rare animal: an optimistic look at the future of America...June 10, 2015

Ghost on the Throne: The Death of Alexander the Great and the War for Crown and Empire (James Romm)Who knew how exciting the events of the fourth century BC could be? Most...May 4, 2015

Gun Control in the Third Reich (Stephen P. Halbrook)Gun control is one of those few issues where there are zero good arguments...April 25, 2015

Infantry Attacks (Erwin Rommel)Most people have heard of Erwin Rommel, at least in passing. But most people...April 23, 2015

Lord of the World (Robert Hugh Benson)Lord Of The World is a highbrow, Catholic version of Left Behind, written by...April 14, 2015

Sir Walter Raleigh (Raleigh Trevelyan)This book not only illuminates Sir Walter Raleigh’s life, but also illuminates his times...March 30, 2015

Understanding Arabs: A Contemporary Guide to Arab Society (Margaret Nydell)This is an awful book. It (the fifth edition, from 2012) contains a tiny...March 21, 2015

The Vikings (Robert Ferguson)A relatively brief academic history–a bit dry in spots, or very dry if you’re...March 20, 2015

The Road To Mecca (Muhammad Asad)This is a fascinating book—half travelogue and half conversion memoir.  Muhammad Asad was born...March 16, 2015

A Troublesome Inheritance: Genes, Race and Human History (Nicholas Wade)Whether this book is good or bad depends largely on what you expect it...March 14, 2015

Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres (Henry Adams)Henry Adams is the type of author, and an author, whom every educated American...February 22, 2015

Crunchy Cons (Rod Dreher)This book is a classic that I finally got around to reading. Maybe it’s...February 21, 2015

Sacred Causes: The Clash of Religion and Politics, from the Great War to the War on Terror (Michael Burleigh)Michael Burleigh is a noted European historian, primarily known for a synthesis approach that...February 17, 2015

Milestones (Seyyid Qutb) Milestones claims to be a revivalist primer, to return Islam to its roots, but...February 12, 2015

The Locust Effect (Haugen & Boutros)I was hoping to find real insight in this book. I didn’t. Not because...February 2, 2015

The Coming Anarchy (Robert Kaplan)This is an interesting book, because it’s a book of (pessimistic) analysis and predictions...January 31, 2015

War Before Civilization: The Myth of the Peaceful Savage (Lawrence Keeley)Anthropology and ethnography are definitely not areas about which I know much, so it...January 26, 2015

A Farewell to Alms: A Brief Economic History of the World (Gregory Clark)This book is part of the sub-genre that might be titled, if being honest,...January 21, 2015

All men dream, but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds, wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act on their dreams with open eyes, to make them possible.

T. E. Lawrence

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  • Charles on The Decadent Society: How We Became a Victim of Our Own Success (Ross Douthat)
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  • Charles on Bullshit Jobs: A Theory (David Graeber)
  • Charles on The Decadent Society: How We Became a Victim of Our Own Success (Ross Douthat)
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Recent

The Decadent Society: How We Became a Victim of Our Own Success (Ross Douthat)

Published by Charles

Almost always one reads a book of future-looking political theory long before or long after its substance has been proven or disproven. It is quite another experience to observe...

March 28, 2020
comments 6
Apocalypse, Book Reviews, Charles, Left-Liberalism, Political Discussion & Analysis, Post-Liberalism, Social Behavior

Great Society: A New History (Amity Shlaes)

Published by Charles

A few weeks ago, I watched Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, and Quentin Tarantino’s movie delivered to me what I have been seeking. Namely, the exact point America...

March 16, 2020
comments 3
American History, Book Reviews, Charles, Foundationalism, Left-Liberalism, Political Discussion & Analysis, Post-Liberalism

The Throne of Adulis: Red Sea Wars on the Eve of Islam (G. W. Bowersock)

Published by Charles

When we think of Late Antiquity, we usually think of Rome, either its decline in the West or its continuation in the East. When we are feeling particularly adventurous,...

March 9, 2020
comments 3
Book Reviews, Charles, Christian History, Classical History, Islam & The Islamic World, Military History, The Orient, War

Lee Kuan Yew: The Grand Master’s Insights on China, the United States, and the World (Graham Allison)

Published by Charles

For Americans who think that so-called liberal democracy is neither, and in any case is a dead end, successful modern societies with a different political model always intrigue. In...

February 9, 2020
comments 12
Biography & Autobiography, Book Reviews, Charles, Ethnography, Great Divergence, Political Discussion & Analysis, Political Economy, Post-Liberalism, The Orient

The Beekeeper’s Lament: How One Man and Half a Billion Honey Bees Help Feed America (Hannah Nordhaus)

Published by Charles

As befits one who seeks to be a man of wealth and taste (if I have to choose between them, the former), I aspire to live on a vast...

January 27, 2020
comments 4
Book Reviews, Business & Money, Charles, Gardening & Farming, Political Economy, Practical Skills

The Accursed Tower: The Fall of Acre and the End of the Crusades (Roger Crowley)

Published by Charles

I often say that the Crusades were a high point of Western civilization. And they were, but they were also an example of flawed glory. Certainly, the goal of...

January 24, 2020
comments 9
Book Reviews, Charles, Christian History, European History, Islam & The Islamic World, Medieval History, Military History, The Orient, War

Nemesis: Alcibiades and the Fall of Athens (David Stuttard)

Published by Charles

We live in an age lacking dynamic leadership. We are instead led, if one can call it that, by men who are clowns, feminized, or confused—or, often, by confused...

January 14, 2020
comments 13
Biography & Autobiography, Book Reviews, Charles, Classical History, Political Discussion & Analysis, Social Behavior, War, Wars To Come

Ages of Discord: A Structural-Demographic Analysis of American History (Peter Turchin)

Published by Charles

I am skeptical of those who predict the future by looking at the past. It’s not that history follows a random walk, like the stock market. Quite the contrary—it...

January 10, 2020
comments 4
American History, Book Reviews, Civil War, Economics, Longitudinal History, Political Discussion & Analysis, Political Economy, Social Behavior, Wars To Come

Only Yesterday: An Informal History of the 1920s (Frederick Lewis Allen)

Published by Charles

Much modern popular history is mendacious, written with an ideological agenda that deliberately distorts, or omits, or simply lies about, the truth. Sometimes, therefore, reading history written in the...

January 8, 2020
comments 2
American History, Book Reviews, Charles, Left-Liberalism, Social Behavior

The Value of Everything: Making and Taking in the Global Economy (Mariana Mazzucato)

Published by Charles

I have long known in my gut that usual measures of social wealth, most of all GDP, are fraudulent, in that they falsely identify value where there is none....

January 6, 2020
comments 6
American History, Book Reviews, Business & Money, Charles, Economics, Political Economy

The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time (Karl Polanyi)

Published by Charles

The Great Transformation, published in 1944, is an ambitious book. It attempts two huge tasks. First, to refute the free market ideology, sometimes called market fundamentalism, represented at that...

December 26, 2019
comments 4
Book Reviews, British History, Business & Money, Charles, Economics, European History, Political Economy, Social Behavior

Sea People: The Puzzle of Polynesia (Christina Thompson)

Published by Charles

Interest in Polynesia is not much in fashion nowadays, except for using the islands as an exemplar of the claimed, always imminent yet never arriving, effects of global warming....

December 17, 2019
comments 0
Book Reviews, Charles, Ethnography, Primitive Cultures, Science

A Time to Die: Monks on the Threshold of Eternal Life (Nicolas Diat)

Published by Charles

A Time to Die is a small gem of a book which works on two levels. On one level, it is a self-examination for the reader, offering him a...

December 12, 2019
comments 0
Book Reviews, Charles, Christian History, European History, Religion

Bullshit Jobs: A Theory (David Graeber)

Published by Charles

I am trying to understand how human beings create value through their actions, and what that implies for humanity. Although this goal is hardly original, and has occupied much...

December 10, 2019
comments 18
Book Reviews, Business & Money, Charles, Economics, Foundationalism, Political Economy, Social Behavior

The Captive Mind (Czeslaw Milosz)

Published by Charles

We all like to imagine ourselves as heroes. We watch movies, and we instinctively put ourselves in the place of the hero, not in the place of the villain....

December 5, 2019
comments 8
Book Reviews, Charles, Communism, Eastern European History, European History, Political Discussion & Analysis, Post-Liberalism, Social Behavior, Social Justice Warriors, Wars To Come

Frederick the Second: Wonder of the World 1194-1250 (Ernst Kantorowicz)

Published by Charles

This book defies easy characterization. It is, to be sure, a biography of the last of the great German medieval emperors, Frederick II Hohenstaufen. But it vibrates with a...

November 19, 2019
comments 2
Biography & Autobiography, Book Reviews, Charles, Christian History, European History, Medieval History, Political Discussion & Analysis

The World Beyond Your Head: On Becoming an Individual in an Age of Distraction (Matthew B. Crawford)

Published by Charles

Attacks on digital technology for destroying our capacity for attention are a dime a dozen. Despite its title, Matthew Crawford’s The World Beyond Your Head is not such an...

November 14, 2019
comments 2
Book Reviews, Charles, Life Advice, Political Economy, Post-Liberalism, Practical Skills, Social Behavior

The Great Leveler: Violence and the History of Inequality from the Stone Age to the Twenty-First Century (Walter Scheidel)

Published by Charles

Economic inequality is, and has been for several years now, the talk of the town. But most of this talk is political—of economic goods today, and whether and how...

November 11, 2019
comments 12
Book Reviews, Charles, Longitudinal History, Political Economy, War

Return of the Strong Gods: Nationalism, Populism, and the Future of the West (R. R. Reno)

Published by Charles

Rusty Reno, editor of the prominent religious conservative journal First Things, here couples an original diagnosis of how we got to the vicious decay of now with very muted...

October 25, 2019
comments 11
Book Reviews, Charles, Conservatism, Great Fragmentation, Left-Liberalism, Political Discussion & Analysis, Post-Liberalism, Social Behavior, Wars To Come

Alexander the Great: His Life and His Mysterious Death (Anthony Everitt)

Published by Charles

Different eras view Alexander III of Macedon differently. Though always honored as a hugely successful military leader and conqueror, in the ancient world, he got mixed press, seen as...

October 19, 2019
comments 8
Biography & Autobiography, Book Reviews, Charles, Classical History, Military History, Social Behavior, The Orient

The New Philistines (Sohrab Ahmari)

Published by Charles

I am a Sohrab Ahmari fanboy. I endorse his recent full-throated calls for creation of a post-liberal future, and admire that he has boldly claimed the mantle of leadership....

October 9, 2019
comments 13
Art & Architecture & Building, Book Reviews, Charles, Foundationalism, Left-Liberalism, Post-Liberalism

Bronze Age Mindset (Bronze Age Pervert)

Published by Charles

I am fascinated by what is to come. For someone who came of age imbibing the narrow, facile, weak, always-second-place conservative pieties of the late 1980s and the 1990s,...

September 23, 2019
comments 18
Book Reviews, Charles, Classical History, Conservatism, Great Fragmentation, Left-Liberalism, Political Discussion & Analysis, Popular, Post-Liberalism, Primitive Cultures, Sex Roles, Social Behavior

The Samurai (Shūsaku Endō)

Published by Charles

The Japanese author Shūsaku Endō is known primarily for his 1966 masterwork, Silence, about the persecution of Christians in mid-seventeenth-century Japan. The backdrop of Silence is the aftermath of...

September 20, 2019
comment 1
Book Reviews, Charles, Christian History, Christian Theology, Colonialism, Ethnography, Fiction, Religion, The Orient

A World Split Apart: Commencement Address Delivered at Harvard University, June 8, 1978 (Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn)

Published by Charles

We in America have long thought highly of ourselves. This feeling crested during the early Cold War, when most Americans believed that our “system,” our way of life, was...

September 18, 2019
comments 6
Apocalypse, Book Reviews, Charles, Communism, Conservatism, Foundationalism, Great Fragmentation, Left-Liberalism, Political Discussion & Analysis, Post-Liberalism, Wars To Come

The Memoirs of St. Peter: A New Translation of the Gospel According to Mark (Michael Pakaluk)

Published by Charles

New translations of the Bible, targeted at a broad audience and done by individuals, rather than committees, seem to be a growth industry. This book, a translation of the...

September 10, 2019
comments 2
Book Reviews, Charles, Christian History, Christian Theology, Religion

The Improbable Wendell Willkie: The Businessman Who Saved the Republican Party and His Country, and Conceived a New World Order (David Levering Lewis)

Published by Charles

If the word hagiography had not already been coined, it would need to be invented for this book. To David Levering Lewis, Wendell Willkie was a combination of Saint...

September 5, 2019
comments 0
American History, Biography & Autobiography, Book Reviews, Charles, Conservatism, Left-Liberalism, Political Discussion & Analysis

Making Dystopia: The Strange Rise and Survival of Architectural Barbarism (James Stevens Curl)

Published by Charles

High architecture, that of grand buildings, is a bridge between God and man, and a sinew binding state and people, the ruling class and the masses. Low architecture, that...

August 27, 2019
comments 0
Art & Architecture & Building, Book Reviews, Charles, Foundationalism, Post-Liberalism, Social Behavior

American Genesis: A Century of Invention and Technological Enthusiasm (Thomas P. Hughes)

Published by Charles

American Genesis is a cultural history of the grand century of American technology, from 1870 to 1970. Thomas Hughes published his book in 1989, when Americans believed that the...

August 21, 2019
comments 0
American History, Book Reviews, Business & Money, Charles, Political Economy, Technology

Liberty, Equality, Fraternity (James Fitzjames Stephen)

Published by Charles

Among the many idols of our age, there is one that rules them all: John Stuart Mill’s harm principle, the belief that an individual’s choices may never be legitimately...

August 16, 2019
comment 1
Book Reviews, British History, Charles, Conservatism, Left-Liberalism, Political Discussion & Analysis, Post-Liberalism, Social Behavior

Ibn Khaldun: An Intellectual Biography (Robert Irwin)

Published by Charles

I generally liked this book, by the erudite Orientalist Robert Irwin, but I am not sure why it exists. It is too academic to be popular, and too popular...

August 9, 2019
comments 2
Biography & Autobiography, Book Reviews, Charles, Islam & The Islamic World, Medieval History, The Orient
  • Live not by lies. — Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
    Tell me who your enemy is and I will tell you who you are. — Carl Schmitt
    If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may have peace; and this single reflection, well applied, is sufficient to awaken every man to duty. — Thomas Paine
    Some have the speed, and the right combinations / If you can't take the punches, it don't mean a thing. — Warren Zevon
    Naglfar, the ship of the apocalypse, shifts into a calculable position. — Ernst Jünger
     Timing is all. — Vladimir Lenin