Wrapped in the Star-Spangled Toga: Recently, it has seemed that ancient Rome is everywhere — especially in comparisons to modern America. A review of Are We Rome? The Fall of an Empire and the Fate of America by Cullen Murphy; The Idea That is America: Keeping Faith with Our Values in a Dangerous World by Anne-Marie Slaughter; and Americanism: The Fourth Great Western Religion by David Gelernter (and more).
Georgian America: Geoffrey Wheatcroft on why George III would have felt right at home in George W. Bush's Washington. Loyal to a Fault: In 1776, one out of five Americans most certainly did not hold those truths to be self-evident. A review of Almost a Miracle: The American Victory in the War of Independence by John Ferling. A review of Fallen Founder: The Life of Aaron Burr by Nancy Isenberg. A review of The Fabric of America: How Our Borders and Boundaries Shaped the Country and Forged Our National Identity by Andro Linklater. A review of Passion and Principle: John and Jessie Frémont, the Couple Whose Power, Politics, and Love Shaped Nineteenth-Century America by Sally Denton. A review of Harriet Tubman: Imagining a Life by Beverly Lowry. A review of The Road to Disunion: Volume II: Secessionists Triumphant, 1854-1861 by William W. Freehling. A review of Land of Lincoln: Adventures in Abe’s America by Andrew Ferguson. The Real Deal: Amity Shlaes on reconsidering our reverence for FDR. A review of Fateful Choices: Ten Decisions that Changed the World, 1940-1941 by Ian Kershaw (and more).
Why Winston Wouldn't Stand For W: George W. Bush always wanted to be like a wartime British prime minister. He is. But it's not the one he had in mind. The Darksider: Hendrik Hertzberg on Cheney’s hubris. There's a lot of talk — and wishful thinking — about removing Dick Cheney from office. But Cheney isn't the real problem, says Sanford Levinson. The vice presidency itself, enshrined in the Constitution, is the problem. The country would be better off without it. Bush's Loyal Mess: How the Bush years have showed us the dark side of a grand virtue. If President Bush is a fascist, then the fact is that the beloved first black president, B.J. Clinton, is a Hitler incarnate.
From HNN, Freedom! Liberty! A look at how presidents exploit words. The Stars and Stripes, the Liberty Bell, the Fourth of July: all come under fire from the tough myth-buster The Fourth of July by Peter de Bolla. A review of The Culture of Calamity: Disaster and the Making of Modern America by Kevin Rozario. From Renew America, Alan Keyes on The Crisis of the Republic and more on electoral politics, elections, media and money, the moral basis for the war on terror, the key to American statesmanship, and sovereignty and submission (with more to come); and Fred Hutchison on a brief history of the five kinds of conservatism from 800 B.C. - 1300 A.D.; from Dante to Shakespeare, 800 B.C. - 1300 A.D.; from the King James Bible to Samuel Johnson, 1600 - 1750; and on the bad seeds sowed from Bacon to Kant, 1600-1800 A.D. (with more to come).
