Books

Review of Laurent Dubois’s “The Banjo: America’s African Instrument”

by Mark Gamin

The fascinating story of the banjo.

Review of Gary J. Byrne’s "Crisis of Character: A White House Secret Service Officer Discloses his Firsthand Experience with Hillary, Bill, and How They Operate”

by Vaughn Davis Bornet

This is a bad book written by an author with an ax to grind.

Review of “Democracy for Realists” by Christopher Achen and Larry Bartels

by Ilya Somin

In "Democracy for Realists," Christopher Achen and Larry Bartels offer a powerful challenge to popular assumptions about democracy.

Review of Richard Rashke's "Children's Letters To A Holocaust Survivor: Dear Esther"

by James Winchell

Good intentions gone awry, says the reviewer, of this volume of letters.  But the author's play, reprinted in the book, is superb.

Review of Nancy Isenberg’s “White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America”

by Daniel Lazare

A well-timed book about the monsters that middle-class America tried to repress.

Review of Glenn Stout's "The Selling of the Babe: The Deal that Changed Baseball and Created a Legend"

by Luther Spoehr

"No, No, Nanette" had nothing to do with it.

Review of Ahmed White’s “The Last Great Strike:  Little Steel, the CIO, and the Struggle for Labor Rights in New Deal America”

by Robert D. Parmet

Ahmed White’s compels a reevaluation of the Wagner Act and its impact, with the reality being that from its inception its enemies refused to accept it.

Review of "Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker: The Miracle of Our Continuance"

by Tom Cornell

A coffee-table book for the Catholic Worker movement leader Dorothy Day, the best journalist of her time.

“The Terrible Power over Human Lives of Ideological Abstractions”

by Walter G. Moss

A review of Aileen Kelly’s "The Discovery of Chance: The Life and Thought of Alexander Herzen."

How Accurate Is the New Movie About the Free State of Jones?

by Ron Briley

It’s based on historian Victoria E. Bynum’s “The Free State of Jones: Mississippi's Longest Civil War.”

Lessons We Failed to Learn from the Origins of the Second Indochinese War

by Ron Briley

A review of three books by the journalist William J. Rust, including: “Eisenhower in Cambodia.”

Review of Michael N. Barnett's "The Star and the Stripes: A History of the Foreign Policies of American Jews"

by Henry D. Fetter

How Jews have oscillated between cosmopolitanism and tribalism in foreign policy.

Review of Peter B. Doran's “Breaking Rockefeller: The Incredible Story of the Ambitious Rivals Who Toppled an Oil Empire”

by Robert Parmet

This book is a special delight for an entrepreneur and a great read for everyone else.

Review of Richard Overy's “The Bombers and the Bombed: Allied Air War Over Europe 1940-1945”

by Robert Huddleston

"The Bombers and the Bombed" is a valuable contribution to the historical record of the Second World War and especially needed now during loose talk about the effectiveness of bombing terrorists. 

Review of Charles Glass's "Syria Burning: A Short History of a Catastrophe"

by Murray Polner

Charles Glass's slim, truthful and updated version of Syria Burning, originally published in 2015, is a perfect antidote to the lack of clarity surrounding the Syrian civil war.

Review of Hans-Joerg Tiede's "University Reform: The Founding of the American Association of University Professors"

by Luther Spoehr

Defining and defending academic freedom--and more.

Review of Adam Hochschild's "Spain in Our Hearts: Americans in the Spanish Civil War, 1936-1939"

by Ron Briley

The Spanish Civil War is a topic off the radar screen of most Americans, but Hochschild’s well written account reminds us that the American volunteers for Spain were more than mere pawns of the Soviet Union.

Review of David Cesarani’s "Disraeli: The Novel Politician”

by Henry D. Fetter

Disraeli may never have made much of his Jewish ancestry, but Cesarani concludes his behavior followed a customary Jewish pattern. 

Review of Dov Waxman's "Trouble in the Tribe: The American Jewish Conflict Over Israel"

by Murray Polner

"Trouble in the Tribe" is a valuable road map to an ongoing and very important conflict.

Review of Sean Wilentz’s "The Politicians and the Egalitarians"

by David Sehat

The intellectual range on display in this collection of essays is truly impressive.