Category Archives: Books

Books in Brief: THE LIFE OF BELISARIUS; I, SNIPER; THE WAR THAT KILLED ACHILLES

Picked it up on a recommendation at NRO The Corner from Victor Davis Hanson.  For the amateur history buff, perhaps the most interesting aspect of the book, which was first published in 1829, is its depiction of a 6th Century Mediterranean world riven by competition and war, still under the shadow of Rome well after [...]

Tales from the Geopolitical Crypt: Seven Deadly Scenarios by Andrew Krepinevich

Seven Deadly Scenarios can be read and enjoyed almost as a collection of near future science fiction stories, though unlike sci-fi writers, who typically unveil the imagined course of future events elliptically, piece by piece, thus to keep the reader puzzling, author Andrew Krepinevich attacks the shape of things to come straight on, and the [...]

¡Atención!: New Books Page

…just finished up a site page devoted to books reviewed and discussed.  It includes capsule descriptions, links to reviews or posts, and links to Amazon. I intend to add a larger “recommended” list, a “current reading/on the way list,” and maybe some other book-related features/links.  Suggestions, both for the recommended lists specifically and in general [...]

The Palin Equation

For those struggling to grasp the phenomenom of Sarah Palin, and to determine the potential of Palinism, I submit the following equation:

I begin my proof by observing a smart review of Going Rogue, one you might not have expected to read under the New York Times logo, even in on-line only content. Offering an appreciation [...]

Portrait of a Failed Presidency: “What the Heck Are You Up To, Mr. President?” by Kevin Mattson

The fall in Barack Hussein Obama’s poll numbers, the difficulties he and his program have faced, naturally prompt comparisons to that emblematic Democratic presidential failure James Earl Carter. 
Enter “Obama Carter” into a popular search engine, and you’ll find commentaries like this one from Seth Leibsohn at the National Review, reflecting on the President’s recently completed [...]

If At First You Don’t Succeed… – WORLD WAR ONE – a Short History by Norman Stone

For the unhappy many on the front lines of the Great War, after no one much remembered why they were fighting, one last recourse was gallows humor, implicitly at the expense of their leaders. “We’re here because we’re here because we’re here because we’re here,” they came to say. Many, of course, are [...]

From Here to Eternal Damnation: The War after Armageddon by Ralph Peters

As the principal action of Ralph Peters’ new novel commences, religious war is consuming the world.  Realizing a scenario that Peters was already discussing a few years ago in response to Mark Steyn’s controversial demographic theories, the Europeans have reverted to their old racist and genocidal ways, forcibly expelling a Muslim population associated with escalating [...]

Sycophancy on parade

A Yale educated sycophant named Rocco Landesman made a fool of himself the other day. Based on what he said in his address of October 21st to the Grantsmakers in the Arts he would have better spent his time and money studying wrestling at Bobo Brazil University rather than Drama at Yale. Mr. Landesman is [...]

Obama’s McLandress dimension

John Kenneth Galbraith’s book The McLandress Dimension was published pseudonymously in 1962. The title “essay” concerns a measurement, supposedly devised by a “psychometricist,” which  gives the time span for which a person is able to focus his attention on something other than himself. Richard Nixon,  at three seconds, had the lowest McLandress dimension on record. [...]

Just read: THE CAVALIER IN THE YELLOW DOUBLET

I won’t attempt a review of The Cavalier in the Yellow Doublet, the fifth book of Arturo Pérez-Reverte’s “Captain Alatriste” series, which is set during the decline of the Spanish Empire in the early 17th Century.  Instead, I’ll note in passing that I fully concur with the Amazon customer who says, “The only problem with [...]

SPEAKING OF ANNIVERSARIES – 60 years…

Soviet Atomic Bomb Test
On August 29, 1949, the Soviet Union exploded its first atomic bomb. It came as a great shock to the United States because they were not expecting the Soviet Union to possess nuclear weapon knowledge so soon. Previously, the United States had used two atomic bombs on Japan to cause them to [...]

Yale and the Case of the Missing Cartoons

Since it’s not often that the AAUP and I agree on anything, I’ve decided to mark the occasion by linking to this piece on the omission of the Mohammed cartoons from a book on — the Mohammed cartoons. (Just typing those words is weird. Try it if you don’t believe me.)

Not Now, Not Then

Imagine a tourist guide entitled What to See in Copenhagen consisting entirely of text: no images of Tivoli Gardens or Frederiksborg, no Little Mermaid fountain or statue of Hans Christian Anderson, not so much as a line drawing, just page after word-laden page describing those subjects. Ridiculous, no? Well consider this: In preparing [...]

Talking to Strangers

“This society is not likely to become free of racism, thus it is necessary for Negroes to free themselves by becoming their idea of what a free people should be.“  -Ralph Ellison, Working notes to Juneteenth
A great deal of interracial distrust now is a product more of retrospection than of immediate personal experience and prevails [...]

I want to have Ian Plimer’s babies

You guys can have Olga. You liberal guys can have Leg-Tingler-in-Chief. This guy makes conservative gals swoon.
Heaven and Earth. Buy it.

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