Category: Reviews

Home Reviews
More Hysteria from Douglas Murray
Post

More Hysteria from Douglas Murray

'On Democracies and Death Cults' serves up neoconservative hysterics that are typical of its author. In Douglas Murray's narrow thinking, you either stand with Israel and democratic values or you belong to a death cult.

From the Finland Station
Post

From the Finland Station

Sean McMeekin's 'To Overthrow the World' deftly traces the entire history of communism as both idea and governing policy—a feat not seen since Edmund Wilson's 'To the Finland Station.'

Brideshead Revisited, The Age of Innocence, The Remains of the Day, Giuseppe Garibaldi, Gioacchino Lanza di Tomasi, ancien régime, Italian nationalism, Don Fabrizio Corbera, Sicily, Italian unification, Netflix, Novel, The Leopard (1958), Tom Shankland, Kim Rossi Stuart,
Post

An Elusive Leopard

Netflix's reinvention of Prince Lampedusa’s “The Leopard” turns old Sicily into a cruel hellscape and, thereby, loses the thing that made the original novel great: A nostalgia for the traditional Sicilian society that Italian nationalism crushed.

Azazel Jacobs, Anton Chekhov, Viktor Frankl, The Doctor and the Soul, His Three Daughters, Jay O. Sanders, Carrie Coon, Natasha Lyonne,
Post

Signs of Life

'His Three Daughters' explores the tension between three sisters, who have little in common aside from family, reunited by the pending death of their father.

Walt Disney Studios, Better Tomorrow, Truth, Justice, adamantium, Julius Onah, Giancarlo Esposito, Manchurian Candidate, LGBTQ+ people, DC Comics, Manchurian Candidate, anti-Trump connotations, Rose Garden, Anthony Mackie, Sam Wilson, Captain America, Brave New World, Harrison Ford,
Post

Captain Anti-America

In 'Captain America: Brave New World' anti-Trump conspiracy theory meets superhero mythology. The leftists finally came for Captain America!

U.S. homosexual population, Robert Bellah, Obergefell, wokeism, Bruce Abramson,
Post

The Religion of Secular Doomsayers

"American Spirit or Great Awokening?" carefully decodes the hidden religious elements of wokeism’s fascination with climate apocalypticism and trans identity. This little book, however, makes some significant missteps.

Christian nationalists, Trump voters, George Floyd riots, Tom Schaller, Paul Waldman, hatred, anti-American, White Rural Rage, anti-white,
Post

The Last Acceptable Prejudice

'White Rural Rage' alleges hatred, bigotry, and utter depravity of white, rural, Christians with no real evidence. Of course, there is not a forthcoming 'Black Urban Rage.'

Howard Zinn, Communists, Nazis, apartheid, Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, anti-blackness, militarism, occupation,
Post

Deconstructing the Colonial Guilt Trip

'On Settler Colonialism' questions whether settler-colonial ideology is just the latest product of the demoralization of the Western world that has gone on since 1914 or whether it is an especially vicious and dangerous development.

The Sound of Freedom, Alejandro Monteverde, German Protestant theologian, Bonhoeffer, Todd Komarnicki, Angel Studios,
Post

Dramatizing Dietrich

Angel Studios has lionized Dietrich Bonhoeffer into a spy and assassin. That's about as historically accurate as making Mahatma Gandhi into Rambo.

The Melting Pot, Der Judenstaat, Zionist, Theodor Herzl, Israel, homeland, Jewish,
Post

Searching for Zion

Rachel Cockerell's quest in "Melting Point" to discover the truth about her great-grandfather has produced not just a family history but a history of the broader search for a Jewish homeland. 

Carolina Lieutenant Governor Mark Robinson, Clare Booth Luce, William F. Buckley, Hillbilly Elegy, Troubled, Rob Henderson, Yale, J. D. Vance, military, poverty,
Post

The Troubled Upbringing Trend

Rob Henderson's story in "Troubled" follows a recent trend in memoirs: A troubled upbringing entailing various hardships. His story is similar to J. D. Vance's "Hillbilly Elegy."

Francis Ford Coppola, Megalopolis, Adam Driver,
Post

Megalopolis Is a Mega-Flop

Francis Ford Coppola's passion project confusedly tells the story of a minor event in Roman history. The bloated budget and string of mishaps hardly helped to salvage this disaster.

Steve Sailer, Noticing, crime of noticing, race and IQ, human biodiversity,
Post

The Crime of Noticing

Compared to most writers, both now and in the past, Steve Sailer speaks to the moment and has a firm grasp on what is happening around the world.

Romance, L’Été dernier, Last Summer, family, cruelty of sexual desire,
Post

The Domestic Cruelty of Desire

Last Summer tells the story of Anne, a lawyer and spouse with a seemingly idyllic life, who becomes a predator of sexual domesticity when a long-lost family member resurfaces.

Captain Thomas Lee, Anglo-Norman, The Old English, The Pale, Ireland, Irish, Walter Raleigh, Edmund Spenser, Faerie Queene,
Post

John Bull’s Other Island

Jane Ohlmeyer examines how English imperialism shaped Ireland; tangled alliances and cultural identities complicate the story of the Irish nationalist movement.

Bruce Hoffman, Jacob Ware, Rachel Powell, insurrection, Jan 6, sedition, peckerwoods, Aryan Brotherhood,
Post

Guns of Delusion

Bruce Hoffman and Jacob Ware partake in academia's mass handwringing over the indigenous “right-wing terror threat”—allegedly represented by the Jan. 6 riot.