Don’t Fence Me In
The Working Class Republican is thesis-ridden, repetitive, and does what any “Gospel According to ... ” book does: it gives all the best lines to the Messiah-figure, in this case, Reagan.
By Gerald Early
Winning One for the Gipper
The story of the rise of Reagan is the story of the successful rise of movement conservatism through rebranding the Republican Party. As Shirley writes astutely, if somewhat glowingly, in Reagan Rising: “In fact, the party was broadening the base by narrowing the appeal. Instead of trying to be all things to all people, the GOP, with Reagan’s gutsy leadership, was becoming one thing to all people."
My Mother, The Star
I now think about my mother every day. I did not do this before she came to St. Louis to live. There was, in fact, a stretch of years when I did not think about her much at all.
Reflections on the Fever Season
How the Hell Did This Happen? is a quick and diverting read that offers a bit to think about whether, and how much, our most recent presidential election reveals the country going completely off the rails.
A Tough Cop’s Patriotic Gore
Cop Under Fire is a rambling monologue, aggressively expressed if not always cogently persuasive as a set of arguments. It would serve Clarke adequately as a campaign book as it expounds his policy views in a number of areas, some only tangentially related, at best, to law enforcement.
Editor’s Note
Maybe money changed us a long time ago and there is really nothing it can do for us now as it is, in the human mind, both everything and nothing.
The Two Francises and Finance
If money is a problem for Christians, both Francis of Assisi and Pope Francis and suggest, the solution is to keep it problematic for Christians and not for anyone else. The Christian community Pope Francis hopes to inspire has—at least figuratively—nobody holding the money bag.
Conservative Media Before Rush
Hemmer’s book is a fine scholarly study of rise of modern American conservatism, a more than twice-told story recounted through the less familiar frame of the rise of conservatism’s media.
The Revolution That Got Televised
William F. Buckley and Gore Vidal were each other’s opposite because they were nearly identical twins in many respects. As a result, their 1968 confrontations would establish the template for televised political exchanges of the future.
Discovering Mexican Literature of the United States
A keystone of the Chicano literature revival, along with a more recent novel about Mexican American social mobility, form a grand legacy awaiting our discovery.
The Conservative’s Dilemma
Trump’s slash-and-burn march to the White House, one of the most stunning accomplishments in the annals of American politics no matter how loathsome the man may be to so many, ended the dynastic claims of two powerful political families: The Republican Bushes and the Democrat Clintons.
Beyond Dissidents
Age of Ambition is no doubt one of the best books about contemporary China in English.