History

Despite occasional oversights, Kevin Birmingham's The Sinner and the Saint: Dostoevsky and the Gentleman Murderer Who Inspired a Masterpiece offers a dramatic and enlightening introduction to the complicated context in which one of literature’s greatest and most horrifying novels was created.

The heroes of philosophy from Thales to Rand—and preeminently Aristotle—have provided us with a priceless gift. In sundry forms, heroes support human life. Nowhere is this truth more powerful than with the heroes of philosophy.

Despite some of Hamilton’s surprising errors, such as his support for mercantilism, his programs prevented the new republic from floundering, as Dianne Durante has shown. Hamilton is worthy of our admiration, and so is Dr. Durante for having done such a fine job of bringing Hamilton and his policies to life.

Indigenous Peoples’ Day celebrates the imagined virtue of staying where you are born. Explorers’ Day would celebrate the very real virtues of investigating the world, discovering new places and possibilities, and taking the bold steps necessary to improve human life.

Written in the final days of his life, as Herschensohn learned of the arrests of brave friends, A Profile of Hong Kong was left unfinished, and it ends on a tragic note, with a run-on sentence that reads like a wail of grief.

Jews have been irrationally blamed for many crimes. In reality, their “sin” was to birth the first faith-based, supernatural religion to deeply influence Western history.

Hundreds of airmen and sailors—mostly young, many only teenagers, many of them civilians—under terrifying circumstances, “redeemed from the brink of disaster one of the most hazardous naval operations of the Second World War.” In expertly recounting their courage and the horrors they faced, Max Hastings has helped ensure the well-deserved immortality of this band of heroes.

On Juneteenth, let’s remember the capitalists whose money and moral support made possible the Union victory—and who thereby played a vital role in abolishing slavery in America.

Americans need a book that will help them better understand the values underlying our early constitutional history—and they need an authoritative and compelling intellectual voice to explain and vindicate the nation’s fundamental law. Sad to say, they will not find those here.

Jackie Cochran's journey from “sawdust to stardust” is inspiring to all who want to achieve great things and “enjoy life to the brimful, every minute of it,” as she did.