The Age of Entitlement: America Since the Sixties, by Christopher Caldwell Caldwell, a Senior Fellow with the Claremont Institute, has spent many years analyzing and reflecting on the liberal uprising of the 1960s and its unforeseen consequences, and this book is a survey of that work.  To understand the points he makes about where we […]

Since the publication of my book, The Texas Pilgrim: 20 Years of Reflection and Commentary, in which I included a number of book reviews of the 150 or so I have written, I have been asked by several readers to recommend my top selections over the years.  Given the current circumstances in which we find […]

Both of the books being reviewed this month were published a couple of years ago, but have been on my shelf as I covered other bases.  As it turns out, however, this was a good time to read and comment on them as we begin the long slog through this election year, as they in […]

I have been a follower of George Will’s work for about 40 years, although I haven’t read one of his books since Statecraft as Soulcraft, his first full length book, over 35 years ago.  I am pleased that I chose to read his latest, The Conservative Sensibility, a major addition to conservative thought that one reviewer, […]

The Pioneers: The Heroic Story of the Settlers Who Brought the American Ideal West, by David McCullough This is a typical McCullough book–a great story, easy to read, educational, and fun.  It tells the story of the settlement and development of the Northwest Territory of the U. S. through the experiences and legacy of several […]

If you are a big fan of Charles Krauthammer as I am, this volume, The Point of It All: A Lifetime of Great Loves and Endeavors, will not disappoint.  In fact I think it is better than his last collection of essays before his death.  This one encompasses 91 essays and articles covering almost 40 years […]

I suppose that, with the possible exception of Abraham Lincoln, no one has had more words written about him than Winston Churchill and, particularly after the 30 years and multiple volumes of output by his official biographer Martin Gilbert, one might wonder what else could there possible be to say or write about him.  And […]

The Diversity Delusion: How Race and Gender Pandering Corrupt the University and Undermine Our Culture, by Heather MacDonald An alternative title to this book might be Identity Politics 101, because Heather MacDonald takes all of it on in a book full of much of what she has written on the subject over the past few […]

Since the Brexit vote in the UK and the election of Donald Trump, the theme of nationalism has been thrown around like some 20th century disease that grew out of Nazism and with movements rife with xenophobia and worse, racism.  Well, there are some nationalists who might harbor such instincts, but it is an unfair […]

Patrick Deneen has written a very ambitious book, Why Liberalism Failed, in which in several respects he makes a compelling case that its founding ideology was destined to fail because it was built upon a foundation of a number of contradictions.  He opens the book as follows: “A political philosophy conceived some 500 years ago, […]