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February 2024
Posted 02.12.24: Kirkus Reviews on The End of Everything: How Wars Descend into Annihilation by Victor Davis Hanson: “Civilizations collapse for many reasons, and these days we worry not so much about war but about climate change and natural disasters. However, as classicist and military historian Hanson warns, it's not out of the question that a modern enemy (Putin) might attempt to erase an opponent (Ukraine) as surely as Cortés brought down the Aztecs. ‘The gullibility, and indeed ignorance, of contemporary governments and leaders about the intent, hatred, ruthlessness, and capability of their enemies are not surprising,' writes the author, surveying a world in which genocide is no stranger.... He writes vividly about relevant cases.... A good choice for geopolitics and military history alike, ranging from specific battles to general principles of warfare.”
Posted 02.12.24: “David Lehman's exuberant collection of essays, poems, and annotated lists captures the manifold associations stirred by a lifetime's attention to crime fiction and movies, touching on everything from wisecracks to cigarettes to musical soundtracks to Kenneth Fearing as 'the patron saint of poetry noir'.”—Geoffrey O'Brien in The New York Review of Books on The Mysterious Romance of Murder
January 2024
Posted 01.26.24: "A rather interesting geographical and geopolitical analyses of six men from the founding generation. For all that has been written of these men, or at least almost all of them, Barone's perspective is taken literally from the ground up. Michael Barone demonstrates masterfully the mental mapping that these men applied to the new nation through domestic and foreign policy, and how their view of the world, whether in politics or economics, still affects modern Americans.... What Barone achieves in his book is a convincing argument that the Founders knew the land: its forests, hills, mountains, streams, rivers, and coastline. It was this knowledge of America's rough terrain, its rich soil, and its climate that enabled the Founders to envision ways to defeat the nation's enemies, sustain its population, and become an economic power. It also informed them of the importance of westward expansion as well as the importance of protecting its coasts from European powers, along with the entire Western Hemisphere." — Dustin Bass, The Epoch Times, on Mental Maps of the Founders: How Geographic Imagination Guided America's Revolutionary Leadership
Posted 01.26.24: “Mental Maps of the Founders: How Geographic Imagination Guided America's Revolutionary Leadership offers valuable insight into the practical wisdom of the men who made America.... Barone is at his best when actually discussing the Founders' fascination with geography as both an intellectual pursuit and political quantity. The book's strongest chapters are those dedicated to the three Virginians, who, more than Barone's other subjects, actually gave a lot of thought to maps, land, and geography.... An important reminder of the oft-neglected practical dimension of America's creation... By showing that the Founders were worried about porous borders and scheming foreign powers—and indeed, that they shaped not just our national identity but our physical nation in response to these concerns—Michael Barone highlights the enduring relevance of the American Founding, and reminds us that it is impossible for us to understand our country as it is without considering the men who first mapped it out in their minds." — Tim Rice, Washington Free Beacon
Posted 01.17.24: “Michael Barone's Mental Maps of the Founders: How Geographic Imagination Guided America's Revolutionary Leadership focuses on this spatial sense among key members of the revolutionary generation. By ‘mental maps,' Mr. Barone intends more than a regional affinity. He means a ‘geographical orientation'—the perspective that place confers. He argues that, for the Founders, it shaped ‘what the new nation they hoped they were creating would look like and be like.' Mr. Barone, a distinguished journalist and political analyst, develops his theme through a series of six biographical portraits.... The Founders' geographical visions, as Mr. Barone shows, informed their sense of how America's distinctive regional cultures might fuse into a common whole.”—Adam Rowe, The Wall Street Journal