Book Review: “His Excellency Eugène Rougon”
I’ve been reading Zola’s “Rougon-Macquart” series at the rate of about one a year. This one is the sixth one. I guess I have another fourteen years to go... Read more.
Book Review: “In the Shadow of Justice: Postwar Liberalism and the Remaking of Political Philosophy”
Liberalism! The great empty hole in many radicals’ understanding of the political spectrum. In many respects, we treat it like a fact of life, like the weather,... Read more.
Book Review: “The Managerial Revolution: What Is Happening in the World”
Who does half-smart like a renegade Trotskyite? From what I can tell of his biography, James Burnham didn’t come to Trotskyism the way you think a political figure... Read more.
Book Review: “The Constitution of Liberty”
It’s honestly getting to be like Charlie Brown and the football, me and these right-wing intellectuals. I mean it when I say I expect more from these people.
I... Read more.
Audiobook Review: “High Weirdness: Drugs, Esoterica, and Visionary Experience in the Seventies”
Reading (well, listening to) this book, appropriately enough given its content and tone, was an experience. Historian of religions Erik Davis landed this book right... Read more.
Book Review: “Mainstreaming Black Power”
I read this out of a desire to get a more finely-grained picture of the recession of the Black Freedom Movement in the 1970s, and what came after. The more I think... Read more.
Book Review: “The Nationalization of the Masses: Political Symbolism and Mass Movements in Germany from the Napoleonic Wars through the Third Reich”
George Mosse had the sort of career that the history profession doesn’t really allow for today. No matter how brilliant an individual historian might be, the way... Read more.
Book Review: “Fair Trade”
I’m not one hundred percent certain I know what a “thriller” is, and especially where the line is drawn between thrillers that depict crime and conventional... Read more.
Book Review: “2034: A Novel of the Next World War”
Who does half-smart like a renegade Trotskyite? From what I can tell of his biography, James Burnham didn’t come to Trotskyism the way you think a political figure... Read more.
Book Review: “Lonesome Dove”
I remember when I was a little kid driving back and forth on errands with my parents that there was a lot more graffiti on the granite rocks along the highways than... Read more.
Book Review: “Ideal Minds: Raising Consciousness in the Antisocial Seventies”
As academic history prods, in its ginger, self-conscious way, into the history of the late twentieth century, the 1970s become a site of contestation. From being... Read more.
Book Review: “The Reign of Quantity and the Signs of the Times”
“Traditionalism” is a thing among the far-right kids these days.
As I’ve written in a few places, seemingly all of them confuse “Tradition,” the mystical... Read more.
2020 Birthday Lecture: Fear and Loathing in Genre New England
Now, in the heat of summer, isn’t the best time for this metaphor, but soon enough it will be: the New Englander walks through dead histories the way they walk... Read more.
Book Review: “The Last American Aristocrat: The Brilliant Life and Improbable Education of Henry Adams”
A certain kind of American pedant — and it’s hard exactly to define, but it is definitely a type — will, given long enough leash, inevitably find themselves... Read more.
Book Review: “Camp Sites: Sex, Politics, and Academic Style in Postwar America”
Not sure how to review this, as it’s been a while since I read a book in this experiential category: a nonfiction book I enjoyed greatly but am not fully sure... Read more.
Interview with John Whitbourn
The author of A Dangerous Energy expands upon his outlook, methods and future works.... Read more.
Book Review: “White Kids: Growing Up With Privilege in a Racially Divided America”
Margaret Hagerman spent years in the wilds of privileged white America, talking with kids, going to their soccer games, etc. in order to produce White Kids: Growing... Read more.
Book Review: “An Accident of Blood”
Margaret Hagerman spent years in the wilds of privileged white America, talking with kids, going to their soccer games, etc. in order to produce White Kids: Growing... Read more.
2019 Birthday Lecture: The Countercultural Vision of History
Ishmael Reed is back in the news these days. The writer, now eighty-one years old, got national attention for his latest play, The Haunting of Lin-Manuel Miranda.... Read more.
Book Review: “The Puritan Dilemma: The Story of John Winthrop”
I read this book due to two of my less popular interests: Puritanism and the American Studies/Consensus School scholars. In many respects, my picture of the former... Read more.
Audiobook Review: “Clandestine” (1982) and “The Spy Who Came In From The Cold” (1963)
Clandestine was the beginning of James Ellroy’s dip into his mythic realm, the noir Los Angeles of the 1950s – the world about which he spent his wayward youth... Read more.