History

The Stasi Poetry Circle offers an unusual glimpse of the relationship between communist totalitarianism and the poetic impulses of both its victims and their victimizers.

What many of Lincoln's contemporaries—and many today—mistook for paradoxes or even contradictions more often reflected the prudence of a leader facing the horrendous task of guiding the United States toward a philosophic principle when unprecedented bloodshed made it sometimes seem safer to disregard that principle.

The life and fate of banned Russian novelist Vasily Grossman is a tragedy worthy of his own novelistic skills. More than fifty years after his passing, we can only imagine what he might have achieved had communist tyranny not stifled him.

Ayatollah Khamenei has said that an Islamic revival is spreading through the Middle East, not by conscious intent, but “like the scent of spring flowers that is carried by the breeze.” Maybe so, but a headwind is blowing steadily and insistently from the West.

Elihu Palmer bravely advocated a philosophy of reason, based on observation of nature, when religion and superstition dominated the culture. He did this not only in spite of fierce popular resistance but also in defiance of tragic personal circumstances.

Although he foresaw and avoided the deadly consequences of both armed conflict in Soviet republics and the continuation of Cold War hostilities, Gorbachev’s legacy falls far short of the praise heaped on it. Instead, the final Soviet leader’s legacy should serve to illuminate the evils of communism and collectivism more broadly.

“Who sets the tone of a culture?,” asked Ayn Rand. “A small handful of men: the philosophers.” According to Robert Tracinski, many of Rand’s followers have taken this to mean that efforts toward a better future should focus on university humanities departments. But, in his latest book, Tracinski argues that this is only part of the story.

Isabel Paterson considered herself the last survivor of a golden age. But she helped bequeath to us a vision of that free world—and not just a vision, but something more precious: a rational intellectual argument for it.

Robert Pierce Forbes’s painstaking research into the writing and revision of Notes on the State of Virginia is impressive and valuable. But his conjectures about Thomas Jefferson’s goals in writing those portions of the book that still stain the great man’s reputation only perpetuate the mysteries.

Despite some faults, Straight Line Crazy does an excellent job of bringing to modern audiences the harsh reality of how governments, even in wealthy, developed countries, can ride roughshod over people’s rights, rich and poor alike.