Books

• 
• 6-22-17
  

  What Kind of Feminism Is This?

  by Jeremy C. Young

  A review of Laura Kipnis’s "Unwanted Advances: Sexual Paranoia Comes to Campus."

• 
• 6-15-17
  

  Review of Jeffrey Moran's "The Scopes Trial: A Brief History with Documents"

  by Bernard von Bothmer

  Has America really changed that much since the 1925 Scopes "Monkey" Trial?

• 
• 6-12-17
  

  Review of David McCullough’s “The American Spirit: Who We Are and What We Stand For”

  by Kathryn Smith

  David McCullough is an American treasure.

• 
• 6-9-17
  

  Review of Alexandra Zapruder’s “Twenty-Six Seconds: A Personal History of the Zapruder Film”

  by John McAdams

  The story of the Zapruder family’s saga.

• 
• 6-6-17
  

  Review of 1st Lt. L.C. Beck, Jr.’s, “Fighter Pilot”

  by Robert Huddleston

  Fighter Pilot was first published in 1946 by Wrtzel Publishing. It was reprinted in 2013 by Literary Licensing, LLC.

• 

• Review of "Teaching Controversial Issues in American Schools" by Jonathan Zimmerman and Emily Robertson

  by Luther Spoehr

  Controversy belongs in the classroom.

• 

• Review of Chris Whipple's “The Gatekeepers: How the White House Chiefs of Staff Define Every Presidency”

  by Kathryn Smith

  "The Gatekeepers" is a fascinating book focusing on the chief of staff role from Nixon to Obama, ending with a bit of speculation about the man serving Donald Trump.

• 
• 5-1-17
  

  Review of Joel Whitney's "Finks: How the CIA Tricked the World's Best Writers"

  by William Bole

  For most readers, the indignation will probably flow mainly from the CIA's truly despicable activities, not from its curious obsession with the editorial machinations of the literary elite.

• 
• 4-27-17
  

  Review of Jerald Podair’s “City of Dreams: Dodger Stadium and the Birth of Modern Los Angeles”

  by Henry D. Fetter

  Did the Dodgers move to LA change the city?  This author thinks so. Our reviewer doubts that.

• 
• 4-26-17
  

  Review of Susan Scott Parrish’s “The Flood Year 1927: A Cultural History”

  by Mark Gamin

  Why the flood of 1927 came to dominate our culture even though other floods did equal damage.

• 
• 4-17-17
  

  Review of Brian Glyn Williams's "Counter Jihad: The American Military Experience in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria"

  by Ralph Seliger

  An unsparing depiction of the so-called Neo-Conservatives, a clique of intellectuals and ideologues from whose ranks key staffers were appointed to the Bush administration’s Pentagon and the office of Vice President Cheney.

• 
• 4-4-17
  

  Review of Kevin Gutzman’s "Thomas Jefferson: Revolutionary"

  by M. Andrew Holowchak

  This short biography makes the case that Jefferson’s legacy as a statesman has been sorely underplayed.

• 
• 3-22-17
  

  Review of Richard Haass’s "A World in Disarray: American Foreign Policy and the Crisis of the Old Order"

  by Dan Lazare

  Haass is less than forthcoming about his own role in the great Middle East debacle. And that's just one of the many problems with this book.

• 
• 3-17-17
  

  Review of Glenn Frankel’s "High Noon: The Hollywood Blacklist and the Making of an American Classic"

  by Ron Briley

  Frankel’s tale of Hollywood politics in the 1950s reminds us that the vehement passions of the contemporary political scene are not necessarily new, and somehow we survived the anticommunist crusade.

• 
• 3-8-17
  

  Free Expression on Campus: What the Authors of 4 Books Are Saying About This Hot Controversy

  by Luther Spoehr

  How freedom of speech becomes freedom from speech.

• 
• 3-3-17
  

  Review of Kim Phillips-Fein's "Fear City:  New York’s Fiscal Crisis and the Rise of Austerity Politics”

  by Robert D. Parmet

  Its title captures the mood of New York in 1975, when a leaflet shouted, “WELCOME TO FEAR CITY,” and called itself “A Survival Guide for Visitors to the City of New York.”

• 
• 3-2-17
  

  Review of Paul Dickson’s "Leo Durocher: Baseball’s Prodigal Son"

  by Ron Briley

  Dickson’s biography of Leo Durocher captures the bright sunshine and optimism of baseball but also its dark side, which is revealed through a man with an inferiority complex and a gambling problem.

• 
• 2-15-17
  

  Review of Richard Moss’s "Nixon’s Backchannel to Moscow: Confidential Diplomacy and Détente"

  by Brian Robertson

  A taut read running at 396 pages, this book reexamines détente by focusing on the secret back channel maintained by Henry A. Kissinger and Soviet Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin.

• 
• 2-13-17
  

  Review of Jay A. Stout's “Vanished Hero: The Life, War, and Mysterious Disappearance of America's World War II Strafing King”

  by Robert Huddleston

  "Vanished Hero," the biography of an American hero, is well-researched, well-written, very informative and often very touching.

• 
• 1-27-17
  

  Review of William J. Mann’s The Wars of the Roosevelts: The Ruthless Rise of America's Greatest Political Family

  by Sheldon M. Stern

  Probing the inner lives of the Roosevelts of Oyster Bay and Hyde Park.