A review of Fur, Fortune, and Empire: The Epic History of the Fur Trade in America by Eric Jay Dolin. A review of A Nation Rising: Untold Tales of Flawed Founders, Fallen Heroes, and Forgotten Fighters from America’s Hidden History by Kenneth C. Davis. From The Journal of American Culture, a review essay on antebellum American thought and politics. Were It a New-Made World: Hawthorne, Melville and the Unmasking of America. A review of Lost Intimacy in American Thought: Recovering Personal Philosophy from Thoreau to Cavell by Edward F. Mooney. A review of The Taming of the American Crowd by Al Sandine. An interview with Cameron C. Nickels, author of Civil War Humor. Thomas J. DiLorenzo on the culture of violence in the American West — myth versus reality. From Inkling, a three-part series on the history of U.S. anti-evolutionary sentiment. Pure Visionary: On the life and times of Anthony Comstock, moral crusader. Geocurrents takes a look at the convergence of drinking habits in the United States, 1970-2007 (and wine and beer). The 1970s were a decade of lost opportunities to reconstruct the New Deal order, when it all went wrong: Mark Schmitt reviews Right Star Rising: A New Politics, 1974-1980 by Laura Kalman; Stayin' Alive: The 1970s and the Last Days of the Working Class by Jefferson Cowie (and more); and Pivotal Decade: How the United States Traded Factories for Finance in the Seventies by Judith Stein.
