ESR Books

Recent reviews and excerpts of books that have run in Enter Stage Right

How the wheels are really greased: Pennsylvania Avenue: Profiles in Backroom Power profiles some of the big power players in Washington, D.C. and left Steve Martinovich a little cynical

From the darkness and into the light: Is film noir an inherently conservative art form? Thomas Hibbs argues that in Arts of Darkness: American Noir and the Quest for Redemption and Steve Martinovich is convinced

The angry novelist: Steven Martinovich thinks Martin Amis is a supremely talented writer but The Second Plane: September 11: Terror and Boredom, a collection of essays and short stories, doesn't succeed

War and honour in the desert: Steven Pressfield's Killing Rommel: A Novel is the latest in the author's historical war novels and Steven Martinovich thinks its a winner

The great man theory: What makes for a truly great political leader? Steve Martinovich says The Case for Greatness: Honorable Ambition and Its Critics attempts to answer that question...and with great success

Everything you know is wrong: Think you know all about the early history of North American exploration and settlement? Steve Martinovich says A Voyage Long and Strange: Rediscovering the New World will likely prove you wrong

The iceberg dead ahead: - Where Does the Money Go?: Your Guided Tour to the Federal Budget Crisis shows that America must start making some serious decisions right now if the economy is to avoid floundering, writes Steve Martinovich

Terror from the left: Jonah Goldberg's Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, From Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning proves a history of fascism is a history of the political left, writes Bernard Chapin

High culture warrior: Roger Scruton's Culture Counts: Faith and Feeling in a World Besieged is a rousing defense of Western culture and the fight to save it, reports John W. Nelson

The rise of the dark horse: Can a third party candidate actually win the American presidency? Douglas Schoen argues in the affirmative in Declaring Independence: The Beginning of the End of the Two-Party System and Steve Martinovich reviews his efforts

Ending the tyranny of oil: Could the United States become energy independent by switching from oil to an alcohol-basede economy? Robert Zubrin's Energy Victory: Winning the War on Terror by Breaking Free of Oil says yes and Steve Martinovich reviews his efforts

The high cost of overeating: Everyone seems to be getting fatter and The Fattening of America: How The Economy Makes Us Fat, If It Matters, and What To Do About It answers if we can do anything about it, writes Steven Martinovich

Forward to compromise!: Compromise isn't necessarily a bad thing, says Steven Martinovich, and In The Genius of America: How the Constitution Saved Our Country and Why It Can Again makes that case...mostly

The high price of blood: The Day of Battle: The War in Sicily and Italy, 1943-1944 is the latest in Rick Atkinson's trilogy covering the Second World War and is a must read, says Steven Martinovich

The world through the mapmaker's eyes: Some liberal editorializing nearly derails it but Steven Martinovich still enjoyed the dazzling coffee table book Cartographia: Mapping Civilizations

Marriage for mollusks: Why does Bernard Chapin read self-improvement books? So you don't have to. With that in mind, his review of The New Rules of Marriage: What You Need to Know to Make Love Work makes total sense

The threat to America: While she disagreed with many of his conclusions, Carol Devine-Molin did appreciate some Pat Buchanan views in Day of Reckoning: How Hubris, Ideology, and Greed Are Tearing America Apart

What's not great about Christianity?: Bernard Chapin is happy that Dinesh D'Souza decided to defend Christianity with his latest effort What's So Great About Christianity

Death world: Just in time for Halloween, Mark Wegierski presents a review of T. P. Bragg's The White Rooms -- a tale of the courageous fight for humanity in a baroque, post-apocalyptic setting of a medical and genetic engineering catastrophe

JFK and the punitive liberals: Bernard Chapin thinks Camelot and the Cultural Revolution: How the Assassination of John F. Kennedy Shattered American Liberalism brilliant effort

US misandry: US Guys: The True and Twisted Mind of the American Man purports to be a study of the American male but Bernard Chapin found it to be self-loathing

Katie Couric: Profile of female privilege: Liberals may hate Edward Klein's Katie: The Real Story but Bernard Chapin says it's one that needed to be written

Attempting to uncover the real Hillary Clinton: Steve Martinovich thought that Her Way: The Hopes and Ambitions of Hillary Rodham Clinton was a reasonably balanced view of the New York senator

For sale: Mass destruction: The Atomic Bazaar: The Rise of the Nuclear Poor is a disappointing look of an important subject, says Steven Martinovich

Season of miracles: Steve Martinovich has nothing but praise for Hurricane Season: A Coach, His Team, and Their Triumph in the Time of Katrina a story of a high school football team that wouldn't allow anything -- including a hurricane -- to stop them

World at war: The world presented in Greg Bear's novel Quantico is a terrifying one and what's worse, writes Steve Martinovich, it's all too plausible

A tough cut of a book: Daniel M. Ryan says that Mobs, Messiahs and Markets: Surviving the Public Spectacle in Finance and Politics betrays its cynical mind set -- and that's not a bad thing

Iron will: Twice as Good: Condoleezza Rice and Her Path to Power isn't entirely successful in exploring the current secretary of state but Steve Martinovich says it's still a worthwhile read

Invasion of the humor snatchers: Conservative critics of the Bush Administration have plenty of good arguments but W. James Antle III says you won't find then in Invasion of the Party Snatchers: How the Holy-Rollers and the Neo-Cons Destroyed the GOP

The art of deception: John W. Nelson won't lie: He really enjoyed Ken Adler's The Lie Detectors: The History of an American Obsession

God is still not dead: Christopher Hitchens' God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything is blasphemous but entertaining. What's the problem? Steven Martinovich didn't find it very convincing

A brief tour of schmuckdom: Bernard Chapin is a big fan of Jackie Mason so it isn't a surprise that he enjoyed Schmucks!: Our Favorite Fakes, Frauds, Lowlifes, Liars, the Armed and Dangerous, and Good Guys Gone Bad

The old new rules to succeed: Steven Martinovich wasn't terribly impressed by the career advice presented in Brazen Careerist: The New Rules for Success

Tyler Durden's worst nightmare: Steve Martinovich didn't particularly care for the pro-advertising message in Watch This, Listen Up, Click Here: Inside the 300 Billion Dollar Business Behind the Media You Constantly Consume

Hillary Clinton: A Trojan Horse?: Do we really need another book telling us how awful a person Hillary Clinton is? Bernard Chapin says if we do, The Extreme Makeover of Hillary (Rodham) Clinton is a good one to have

The high cost of oil: Discovering oil is supposed to make you rich but Untapped: The Scramble for Africa's Oil shows that it is at best a mixed blessing for Africa, says Steven Martinovich

The struggle for better: Atul Gawande has a justified reputation as a great medical writer and Steve Martinovich says Better: A Surgeon's Notes on Performance proves it

Death of a people: The Holocaust, the collapse of Zimbabwe and a son learning who is father is all make up When a Crocodile Eats the Sun: A Memoir of Africa, one of the finest memoirs Steve Martinovich has read in years

How America lost the winnable war: Mark Moyar argues in Triumph Forsaken: The Vietnam War, 1954-1965 that the United States was on the way of defeating communism in South Vietnam when it decided to lose the war, writes Steven Martinovich

The storm after the calm: Steve Martinovich thought that Martha Raddatz's The Long Road Home: A Story of War and Family was a fantastic look at a horrific battle fought by America's soldiers in Sadr City

When satire and reality collide head-on: Are you surprised that Generation Xer Steve Martinovich loved Christopher Buckley's Boomsday, a novel whose heroine advocates voluntary suicide by Baby Boomers to save Social Security?

The high price of success: The Overachievers: The Secret Lives of Driven Kids purports to be a study of America's growing number of extreme Type A high school students. Steve Martinovich wasn't convinced

Of rights and character assassination: Bernard Chapin wishes the book were a bit longer but other than that he only has raves for David Horowitz's Indoctrination U: The Left's War Against Academic Freedom

It began in the Nineteenth Century: It isn't a perfect effort but Daniel M. Ryan says that Radicals for Capitalism: A Freewheeling History Of The Modern Libertarian Movement did fine work exploring the subject matter

Scholarly pursuit: As with most things Nazi Germany was rigorous in the "science" of anti-Semitism. John W. Nelson says Studying the Jew: Scholarly Antisemitism in Nazi Germany does a marvelous job in exploring the subject matter

The Best Books of 2006: Wearing his book editor hat Steve Martinovich picks what he thought were the best books that Enter Stage Right reviewed in 2006

The evolution of the feminist: A profanity laden book written by a feminist from the Betty Friedan wing of the movement? Bernard Chapin says some conservatives will actually enjoy The Female Thing: Dirt, Sex, Envy, Vulnerability

Understanding the Democrats: It's a pity that more people didn't read David Limbaugh's Bankrupt: The Intellectual and Moral Bankruptcy of Today's Democratic Party before voting earlier this month, writes Christopher Adamo. Things might have been different

Why can't we save our own country?: Bernard Chapin says that Pat Buchanan's State of Emergency: The Third World Invasion and Conquest of America tells it like it is, whether you want to hear the message or not

A room with a brew: John W. Nelson liked the idea of Where Men Hide, an exploration of the spaces men use to get away from it all, but he thinks James B. Twitchell wasn't the right person to write the book

Nietzsche was wrong: Thomas E. Brewton has nothing but praise for Republicanism, Religion, and the Soul of America, an investigation into the religious character of America

The truth behind the conspiracy theories: Jews...the Bush Administration...space aliens. Everyone was to blame for 9/11. Damian Penny reviews Debunking 9/11 Myths: Why Conspiracy Theories Can't Stand Up to the Facts, an investigation into the wacky theories surrounding that horrible day

When academics write film books: All Thomas M. Sipos wanted was a pleasant investigation of George Romero's zombie classics. Instead, he got the politically charged Gospel of the Living Dead

The end of the world is nigh! Invest now!: Black Gold: The New Frontier in Oil for Investors treads where other efforts have already gone and nowhere near as well, writes Steve Martinovich

Love and tyranny in the USA: Lady was a fan of Matthew Bracken's Enemies Foreign and Domestic and she wasn't disappointed by its follow-up Domestic Enemies: The Reconquista

Blueprint for Democrats: Deceive and conquer: Bruce Walker says that The Shadow Party: How George Soros, Hillary Clinton, and Sixties Radicals Seized Control of the Democratic Party has the goods in chronicling how radicals like George Soros took control of America's left wing

The cause of poor education: Why are America's children being taught so poorly? Nancy Salvato says Why Kids Can't Read: Challenging the Status Quo in Education answers that question

The art of dressing well: No, The Suit: A Machiavellian Approach to Men's Style isn't about what to wear while ruling your domain. It is an informed and unique guide to how men should dress, says Steven Martinovich

Changing things: John Cox wants to be president of the United States and Politic$, Inc.: Principle, Not Profit: Why We Need Statesmen, Not Career Politicians is his manifesto. Nathan Tabor reviews his efforts

White guilt: Today, tomorrow, and forever: Shelby Steel's White Guilt: How Blacks and Whites Together Destroyed the Promise of the Civil Rights Era argues that the civil rights movement was undermined before it could achieve its promise and Bernard Chapin reviews his efforts

The truth behind the story: Know what The Rose Line is? Confused about the early history of Christianity? Steve Martinovich says The Da Vinci Codebreaker: An Easy-to-use Fact Checker will set you straight

Long John Teddy Bear: Golfer John Daly comes across as a very human -- and broken -- person in My Life in and Out of the Rough: The Truth Behind All that Bull**** You Think You Know About Me writes Bernard Chapin

How you too can become a millionaire like the author of The Da Vinci Code: It's not difficult to become a millionaire author, says Rachel Alexander. Just write a book purporting to tell the secret history of Christianity and you'll be in the money

Did you hear the one about the meat growing trees?: We live in a world make up of the fake and Hippo Eats Dwarf: A Field Guide to Hoaxes and Other B.S. is a useful guide to making your way through it, says Steve Martinovich

The lessons of love: The Book of Trouble: A Romance could have been one of those typical romance memoirs but Steve Martinovich says Ann Marlowe elevated her effort far past that

The last days of manliness: If being a man needs defending in today's world, writes Bernard Chapin, then Harvey C. Mansfield's Manliness does a superb job

Fukuyama's John Kerry moment: Francis Fukuyama makes some convincing points against the war in Iraq and the Bush administration's foreign in policy in America at the Crossroads: Democracy, Power, and the Neoconservative Legacy but Steve Martinovich finds it ultimately unconvincing

Life in verse: Steven C. Caton's Yemen Chronicle: An Anthropology of War and Mediation is a marvelous piece of personal history and cultural exploration, writes Steven Martinovich

The House & Garden conservatives: Rod Dreher's attempt to create an conservative environmentalist movement with Crunchy Cons: How Birkenstocked Burkeans, gun-loving organic gardeners, evangelical free-range farmers, hip homeschooling mamas, right-wing nature lovers, ... America (or at least the Republican Party) is out to lunch, writes Bernard Chapin

Take the gangstas bowling: An endview: Bernard Chapin's new book, Escape from Gangsta Island: A School's Progressive Decline, is now officially available and he updates us on some of the real-life characters in the book

The federocracy: Explained and indicted: Edwin J. Feulner and Doug Wilson's Getting America Right: The True Conservative Values Our Nation Needs Today is a no-holds barred attack on the federal government and how it "helps" Americans, writes Bernard Chapin

Into a brave new world: Steve Martinovich believes that Ronald Bailey accomplished his goal of defending biotech with Liberation Biology: The Scientific And Moral Case For The Biotech Revolution

Changing the rules: A nation's sovereignty is neither absolute or non-existent, argues Orrin Judd's Redefining Sovereignty: The Battle for the Moral High Ground in a Changing World, a collection of essays from thinkers on the issue. Steve Martinovich reviews his efforts

The perpetual teach-in for perpetual indoctrination: The Professors: The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America is an astounding and disturbing tour of some of America's more worrisome holders of tenure, says Bernard Chapin

A book worth the reading on keeping American strong and free: Stephen M. Lilienthal thought that Frank J. Gaffney Jr.'s War Footing: 10 Steps America Must Take To Prevail In The War For The Free World should be a wake-up call for all Americans

The optimistic warrior: Thomas Barnett has a strategic roadmap for the world in Blueprint for Action: A Future Worth Creating to achieve peace in our time. Steve Martinovich reviews his efforts

The government's entitlement program: Robert Higgs argues in Resurgence of the Warfare State: The Crisis Since 9/11 that the Bush administration is has damaged America since 9/11. Steve Martinovich grants him some of his points but considers the effort a failure

A profile of madness: If you want to understand the madness that is Kim Jong Il, says Damian Penny, you won't go wrong with Rogue Regime: Kim Jong Il and the Looming Threat of North Korea

The radical feminist plague: Feminists have been on a warpath against Women Who Make the World Worse And How Their Radical Feminist Assault is Ruining Our Families, Military, Schools, and Sports so perhaps not surprisingly Bernard Chapin loved it

Morphing Bush into mahogany: With Rebel in Chief: Inside the Bold and Controversial Presidency of George W. Bush Fred Barnes attempts to paint Dubya as a political outsider. Were that only so, responds Bernard Chapin

The man who defined the world: Steve Martinovich found Henry Hitchings' Defining the World: The Extraordinary Story of Dr Johnson's Dictionary a marvelous account of the first modern English-language dictionary

The metrosexual as lion: Bernard Chapin didn't particularly care for Neil Strauss, the author of The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists, or the games he played to score women

The Best Books of 2005: The staff of ESR tried to read every book that was published last year but fell a little short. That's not preventing them from offering up their choices for the best of 2005

The warrior soul: George S. Patton was a complicated man and one of the greatest generals in the history of warfare. John W. Nelson says that Trevor Royle's Patton: Old Blood and Guts is a worthy exploration of the man

The battle on campus: The latest generation of conservatives on campus are ready to do battle, explains Brendan Steinhauser in an excerpt from his new book The Conservative Revolution: How to Win the Battle for College Campuses

Fighting the war: Jim Burho tackles anti-Iraq war opponents in Hello America! An International Debate on the Events Leading to the War in Iraq and Steve Martinovich reviews his efforts

Off the mark: Regardless of how you feel about pornography, writes Bernard Chapin, Pornified: How Pornography is Transforming Our Lives, Our Relationships, and Our Families is little more than a poorly written feminist screed

Infidelity chic: Undressing Infidelity: Why More Wives are Unfaithful is the latest in a series of books that promotes infidelity and it couldn't even do that skillfully, says Bernard Chapin

Dressing like a man: Despite no excuse for doing so, men continue to dress appallingly. Steve Martinovich says Men's Style: The Thinking Man's Guide to Dress is one way to fix that problem

A handheld civics lesson: It isn't perfect but in this age of shoddy civics classes, writes Steven Martinovich, The Pocket Book of Patriotism is a good educational aid about the basics of the United States

The mutating virus of militant Islamism: Steve Martinovich rarely describes a book as a "must read" but he does so with Fawaz Gerges' The Far Enemy: Why Jihad Went Global, an exploration into why militant Islam switched targets and attacked the West

American conservatism's family stories: Steve Martinovich found Priscilla Buckley's Living It Up with National Review: A Memoir to be a charming remembrance of her time at the National Review and frequent travels around the world

The passive-aggressive superpower: Will Europe dominate the 21st century? Mark Leonard's Why Europe Will Run the 21st Century says yes. Steven Martinovich isn't so convinced

Men of ideas: Hamilton, Adams, Jefferson: The Politics of Enlightenment and the American Founding covers ground that has been trod many times but it's a total failure, writes Steven Martinovich

The war on America: Gary Schneider writes that The ACLU vs America: Exposing the Agenda to Redefine Moral Values builds a strong case against the left's leading civil rights advocate

Hollywood and the media: Liberals' last resort: Christian Hartsock says that Hollywood Nation: Left Coast Lies, Old Media Spin and the New Media Revolution is a successful expose of a corrupted Hollywood culture

Where death lives: Kang Chol-Hwan's The Aquariums of Pyongyang: Ten Years in the North Korean Gulag is a powerful indictment of a nation that has essentially made the concept of shared humanity illegal

The end of cheap gas: Steve Martinovich found Twilight in the Desert: The Coming Saudi Oil Shock and the World Economy to be one heck of a wake-up call

Recognition of consequences: David Horowitz's latest book, The End of Time, isn't a heated polemic but rather a meditation on life, death and what it all means, says Bernard Chapin

The price of black money: Steve Martinovich had some problems with The Washing Machine: How Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing Soils Us but he feels it's still an interesting introduction to the subject matter

The high cost of labor: Steve Martinovich found Giles Milton's White Gold: The Extraordinary Story of Thomas Pellow and Islam's One Million White Slaves to be a fascinating introduction to a nearly forgotten episode in history

Man of faith: John Grant's John Adams: Party of One tells the true story of John Adams, a man who stood alone but was also armed with the power of his faith, writes Steve Farrell

Characters fail debut novelist: Actually Steve Martinovich found that plenty of things failed The Coast of Akron, the debut novel by Adrienne Miller, but he also sees a bright future for her

Porn nation: Bernard Chapin is sympathetic to Ben Shapiro's concerns but he thinks Porn Generation: How Social Liberalism is Corrupting our Future went way over the top

The medical world's Howard Roark: Gen LeGreca's Noble Vision -- a story about the battle over government provided health care -- is a novel that Ayn Rand could have written, writes Gennady Stolyarov II

Exploring Muhammad's legacy: Everyone thinks they know what Islam is about. Steve Martinovich says that reading No god but God: The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam will straighten out the wrongheaded beliefs of many of those people

Our unmasterable past: The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History earned the ire of many cultural commentators but Bernard Chapin says we need more books like it

Lawrence of Africa: Steve Martinovich will admit some bias: Richard Zacks is one of his favourite writers. Despite that, you can trust his opinion that The Pirate Coast: Thomas Jefferson, The First Marines, and the Secret Mission of 1805 is a rousing success

A brother's questions: Novelist Uwe Timm wrote In My Brother's Shadow: A Life and Death in the SS to try and understand a brother he never knew and a nation that went mad. Steve Martinovich reviews his efforts

New life for the oldest hatred: It's not perfect but Damian Penny says that Those Who Forget the Past: The Question of Anti-Semitism is a worthy exploration of the ages-old problem of anti-Semitism

The truth about the world's favorite murderer: If you're tired of Fidel Castro's international fan club Steve Martinovich says you'll love Fidel: Hollywood's Favorite Tyrant

Single male alone…and on fire: If single men have cause to rant, writes Bernard Chapin, then Thomas Ellis' The Rantings of a Single Male: Losing Patience with Feminism, Political Correctness, and Basically Everything explains why

Harvard Law's schism over free speech: Harvard may be home of America's preeminent law school but it also one of the nation's leaders in squelching free speech. Rachel Alexander reviews The People V. Harvard Law: How America's Oldest Law School Turned Its Back on Free Speech

Thank you for not sharing: Man of few words Bernard Chapin hails One Nation Under Therapy: How the Helping Culture is Eroding Self-Reliance by Christina Hoff Sommers and Sally Satel

Viva la South Park revolucion!: America's liberals are nervous because a new breed of conservatives have risen. The new right is mad as hell and they won't &$#@)!% take it anymore. Bernard Chapin reviews South Park Conservatives: The Revolt Against Liberal Media Bias

The danger from the east: Jerome R. Corsi's Atomic Iran: How the Terrorist Regime Bought the Bomb and American Politicians paints a terrible picture of a violent and radical Iran armed with nuclear weapons, says Carol Devine-Molin

The struggle for Latin American liberty: Although it had some problems Steve Martinovich still found Alvaro Vargas Llosa's Liberty for Latin America: How to Undo Five Hundred Years of State Oppression a valuable effort

Liberty's most able foot soldier: Whether you're a libertarian or not, argues Steven Martinovich, there's plenty in the compilation Choice: The Best of Reason to get you thinking

Les hommes de l'empire: France has long been blasted for its colonial record and the men responsible for it but Steve Martinovich says that Cultured Force: Makers and Defenders of the French Colonial Empire goes a long way in resuscitating their reputations

A profile in courage: Steve Martinovich thinks the word "hero" is used a bit too often these days but he has no problems with calling U.S. Army Captain David Rozelle one after reading Back in Action: An American Soldier's Story of Courage, Faith and Fortitude

The kids aren't alright: Are American middle-class teens receiving a raw deal from society? Steve Martinovich accepts that a good many are but he still had to pan The Road to Whatever: Middle-Class Culture and the Crisis of Adolescence

Newt: The futurist: Carol Devine-Molin believes that Winning the Future: A 21st Century Contract with America should be required reading for everyone

A cultural counter-revolution: Fan Shen's Gang of One: Memoirs of a Red Guard tells the story of a society that banned freedom and thought. Damian Penny reviews his efforts

The day that changed the world: Steve Martinovich thought that The Fly in the Cathedral: How A Small Group of Cambridge Scientists Won The Race to Split the Atom was a...err...smashing piece of work

Recipe of a life: As a chronicle of writer M.F.K. Fisher's life, Poet of the Appetites: The Lives and Loves of M.F.K. Fisher, did a decent job. Steve Martinovich just wishes it had been a bit more

The law's greatest advocate: Scalia Dissents: Writings of the Supreme Court's Wittiest, Most Outspoken Justice is a potent argument for why Antonin Scalia should be respected by every American, writes Steven Martinovich

Simms on football: The NFL's season is one game away from completion but that doesn't mean you shouldn't pick up Sunday Morning Quarterback: Going Deep on the Strategies, Myths & Mayhem of Football, says Steven Martinovich

The rise of the American empire: Steve Martinovich hails The Empire Has No Clothes: U.S. Foreign Policy Exposed as the best criticism of America's interventionist foreign policy to come from either the left or right in recent years

Enemy of the state: My Father's Rifle: A Childhood in Kurdistan tells the story of a Kurdish boy who discovers far too early in life how difficult simply existing can be, writes Steve Martinovich

Failing to make the case: Rachel Alexander argues that Michael Scheuer's Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terror is a one-sided and unconvincing affair

Changing the climate: He would have preferred a little more plot and character development but Steve Martinovich still enjoyed Michael Crichton's latest novel State Of Fear

The war after the war: Steven Vincent explores post-war Iraq in In The Red Zone: A Journey into the Soul of Iraq and he's cautiously optimistic about that nation's future, reports Steve Martinovich

The Best Books of 2004: He could have easily picked twice as many but Steve Martinovich hails the twenty books he and the ESR staff were happy to read in 2004

The twilight of Italian fascism: Ray Moseley's Mussolini: The Last 600 Days of Il Duce had some problems but John W. Nelson thought it a great effort

The anti-male gimp factor: We're not sure if The Wimp Factor: Gender Gaps, Holy Wars, and the Politics of Anxious Masculinity is the worst book Bernard Chapin has ever read, but his review seems to suggest that

God and America: Toby Mac and Michael Tait had an obvious agenda to promote America as a Christian nation with Under God but even athiest Steve Martinovich enjoyed their efforts

A classic updated for the modern era: Wearing white is permissible after Labor Day? There are a few things Steve Martinovich didn't like about Emily Post's Etiquette, 17th Edition but overall he was impressed by Peggy Post's update to the classic

Sharansky's case for democracy: Carol Devine-Molin was impressed by Natan Sharansky's The Case for Democracy: The Power of Freedom to Overcome Tyranny and Terror, an argument for the transformative nature of democracy

How to retire by age 4500: Is it possible to have a life span measured in thousands of years? He's not convinced but Steve Martinovich still found Fantastic Voyage: Live Long Enough to Live Forever to be quite interesting

The demonization of a life-saving industry: The pedigree of the author of The Truth About Drug Companies: How They Deceive Us and What to Do About It should have made the book an impressive argument against Big Pharma but Dr. Elizabeth M. Whelan says it failed in its mission

The best little whorehouse in Pennsylvania: Tom Wolfe argues in I am Charlotte Simmons that university has become nothing but an alcohol and sex soaked experience. Whether that's true or not, responds Steve Martinovich, Wolfe has written a bad novel

The story of America's First Couple: It had some problems, noticably in what it didn't cover but Bob Colacello's Ronnie and Nancy: Their Path to the White House -- 1911 to 1980 was still interesting, Steve Martinovich says

Truth that's better than fiction: Steve Martinovich says that Truth and Fiction in the Da Vinci Code: A Historian Reveals What We Really Know About Jesus, Mary Magdalene, and Constantine is a fascinating look at the real history behind the early Christian church

President Tom Sawyer: Yeah, so we're a bit late to the party with a review of Bill Clinton's My Life but given ours is written by Michael Moriarty we think it's still worth reading

Citizens who become soldiers: Who is fighting the war on terror? Alan Caruba says that B. Diggs Brown Jr.'s Your Neighbor Went to War: Reality and the War on Terror shows it's average American

Ann's Coulterpalooza: With How to Talk to a Liberal (If You Must): The World According to Ann Coulter Bernard Chapin says you know exactly what you're going to get: Ann Coulter asking for and giving no quarter to the left

The man behind the legend: The Virtues of War: A Novel of Alexander the Great could have been a simple hack and slash novel but Steve Martinovich says that Steven Pressfield instead outdid himself

A battle that changed the world: Barry Strauss argues in The Battle of Salamis: The Naval Encounter That Saved Greece -- and Western Civilization that a naval battle in 480BC saved Western civilization. Steve Martinovich isn't sold on that notion but he thinks the book is still a rousing success

The math behind the madness: Just like in life, science plays a big role in football. Steve Martinovich has nothing but praise for Football Physics: The Science of the Game

Not so perfect Liebling: If there is a God of journalism most would tell you it's A.J. Liebling. Steve Martinovich says that Just Enough Liebling a collection of the man's work proves that just while the man was immensely talented, he was no deity

The day the sky darkened: Steve Martinovich can only roll his eyes at Graydon Carter's What We've Lost, the latest book to argue that on January 20, 2001 the United States collapsed because of the election of George W. Bush

The fight to save the presidency: Steve Martinovich found Bob Barr's The Meaning of Is: The Squandered Impeachment and Wasted Legacy of William Jefferson Clinton to be a fascinating look at a sad period in American politics

In praise of the first term: If you need a book length argument that George W. Bush's first term was a triumph then Steven D. Laib says Thank You, President Bush: Reflections on the War on Terror, Defense of the Family, and Revival of the Economy will be your cup of tea

Reviving Roosevelt's agenda: Steve Martinovich wasn't convinced by Cass Sunstein's The Second Bill of Rights: FDR's Unfinished Revolution and Why We Need It More than Ever but he thought it was interesting nevertheless

Cracking life's code: FBI Girl: How I Learned to Crack My Father's Code is a touching story of family that everyone will be able to relate to, says Steve Martinovich

Teaching the choir how to sing: Wake up Republicans! Hugh Hewitt's If It's Not Close, They Can't Cheat: Crushing the Democrats in Every Election and Why Your Life Depends on It argues its absolutely vital that Republicans win this November and Steve Martinovich agrees with him

Conservatives and their wily use of alternative media: Carol Devine-Molin has nothing but praise for America's Right Turn: How Conservatives Used New and Alternative Media to Take Power, the story of how the New Right came to power using technology to spread the word

Choosing the right general for the war: Steve Martinovich found Reckless Disregard: How Liberal Democrats Undercut Our Military, Endanger Our Soldiers, and Jeopardize Our Security to be a compelling argument against voting for John Kerry this November

Spies like us: The current war against terrorists isn't the first time that the United States has used military tribunals to prosecute enemy soldiers. Dr. John W. Nelson says that Michael Dobbs' Saboteurs: The Nazi Raid on America documents how it was once used against German agents

Less than a person: To be a woman in Saudi Arabia is to be nothing argues Carmen bin Ladin in Inside the Kingdom: My Life in Saudi Arabia, a story Steve Martinovich found to be a powerful one

The gray tidal wave: Peter G. Robinson has an alarm call about government debt and retirement in Running on Empty: How the Democratic and Republican Parties are Bankrupting Our Future and What Americans Can Do About It worth listening to, says Steve Martinovich

The other side of post-war Iraq: The media is filled with negative stories about post-war Iraq so that makes Karl Zinsmeister's Dawn over Baghdad: How the U.S. Military Is Using Bullets and Ballots to Remake Iraq important to get the other side of the story out, says Steven Martinovich

When friendships go bad: If you hate the United Nations and Old Europe then Steve Martinovich says Jed Babbin's Inside the Asylum: Why the UN and Old Europe Are Worse than You Think is right up your alley

When two plus two equals maybe: It's not a slam dunk but Steve Martinovich thinks The Connection: How al Qaeda's Collaboration with Saddam Hussein has Endangered America builds a reasonably persuasive case

A lack of character: Steve Martinovich thinks Mexico's Ignacio Padilla is a talented writer but he wishes the writer's collection of short stories, Antipodes, showed a little more character

Surviving the most dangerous game: What does it feel like to be hunted for simply being who you are? Steve Martinovich says you gain an appreciation of the answer in Hiding in Plain Sight: The Incredible True Story of a German-Jewish Teenager's Struggle to Survive in Nazi-Occupied Poland

An English tutorial: Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation is selling like hot cakes but Bernard Chapin says it's not the best grammar guide you can purchase

The imperfect democracy: The democratic revolution that opened up Mexico just four years ago passed by largely unnoticed by the world. Steve Martinovich says Opening Mexico: The Making of a Democracy rectifies that

The new face of warfare: Steven Martinovich came away very impressed by Evan Wright's Generation Kill: Devil Dogs, Iceman, Captain America, and the New Face of American War, a story of the men who fought the Iraq war

The art of politics: If you've ever thought of throwing your hat into the political ring then you might find Bill Rauch's Politicking: How to Get Elected, Take Action, and Make an Impact in Your Community an interesting guide, says Steve Martinovich

A general's resume: Gen. Anthony Zinni served his nation honourably for over three decades in the U.S. Marine Corps. Steve Martinovich thinks Battle Ready is his advertisement that he wouldn't mind being the next Colin Powell

Achieving victory in the war on terror: Carol Devine-Molin thinks that Thomas McInerney and Paul E. Vallely make a convincing argument for how to achieve victory in Endgame: The Blueprint for Victory in the War on Terror

How life and death transform each other: Rainer Maria Rilke's Sonnets to Orpheus can be a tough read but Steve Martinovich thought Edward Snow's translation does the German poet proud

Booth Tarkington and Penrod: Booth Tarkington has largely been forgotten by modern readers and Robert S. Sargent, Jr. thinks that could change

Mark Steyn's beautiful body: Nothing makes Steve Martinovich happier than a new book by Mark Steyn and with From Head to Toe: An Anatomical Anthology he's very happy

Leading immigration reform website hits bookshelves: VDARE.com has made the transition from web page to book with Unity Review -- A 2004 VDARE.com Anthology and W. James Antle III proclaims it a success

The legend of Dresden: Dr. John W. Nelson finds Frederick Taylor's Dresden: Tuesday, February 13, 1945, a look at the devastation brought on that city by Allied bombers, to be a first-rate piece of work

Hard America, great America: Michael Barone's Hard America, Soft America: Competition Vs. Coddling and the Battle for the Nation's Future is a fantastic book on the value of hard work and competition, judges Bernard Chapin

When sisterhood goes wrong: If you want an insightful look at the world of sororities, writes Steven Martinovich, then Alexandra Robbins' Pledged: The Secret Life of Sororities isn't the book for you

The American king: The Man Who Would Be King: The First American in Afghanistan tells the absolutely true story of a 19th century American who decided to become a king in Afghanistan and Steve Martinovich thought it was a thrilling story

Hitler's final victims: Steve Martinovich isn't sure if he buys Joachim Fest's of why Adolph Hitler did what he did those last days of the Third Reich but Inside Hitler's Bunker: The Last Days of the Third Reich is still an interesting read

Exploring the Mediterranean with muddy boots: Jackson Murphy was captivated by Robert Kaplan's Mediterranean Winter: The Pleasures of History and Landscape in Tunisia, Sicily, Dalmatia, and Greece

A vision for the future: Steve Martinovich found Dr. Thomas P.M. Barnett's The Pentagon's New Map: War and Peace in the Twenty-First Century to be an engaging and remarkable call for a new grand vision for the United States

The days that saved the United States: It wasn't perfect but Steve Martinovich thinks David Hackett Fischer's Washington's Crossing, the story of the early days of the American Revolution, is an impressive bit of scholarship and writing

How neoconservatives are ruining the world: Steve Martinovich doesn't agree with a lot of what the authors of Bush League Diplomacy: How the Neoconservatives Are Putting the World at Risk had to say but he's willing to allow they do make some interesting points

The Nazi connection to Islamic terrorism: Samuel L. Blumenfeld says that Charles Morse's The Nazi Connection to Islamic Terrorism: Adolf Hitler and Haj Amin al-Husseini does a solid job in telling the story of how Islamism and Nazism became bedmates

A poem for the West: G. K. Chesterton's newly reissued masterpiece Lepanto, writes Robert Bové, is the story of a heritage that the Spanish have turned their backs on

The man behind the war: It wasn't perfect but Steve Martinovich thought Rowan Scarborough's Rumsfeld's War: The Untold Story of America's Anti-Terrorist Commander was an interesting look at Donald Rumsfeld and how he's prosecuting the war on terror

Growing problems: Steve Martinovich thinks Richard Manning's Against the Grain: How Agriculture Has Hijacked Civilization is misguided but still a very interesting read

Renewing America: If you accept the premise that the United States is a nation in decline, says Steven Martinovich, then Curtis L. Harris' Ending Entrenched Power: Spiritual Renewal, Political Change and America's Destiny could be a solution to reversing the slide

The General Patton of the testing wars: Nicholas Stix says that Richard Phelps's Kill the Messenger: The War on Standardized Testing is a brilliant defense of standardized testing

How the war was won: Outside of some minor quibbles about his editorializing, Steve Martinovich thought Rick Atkinson's In the Company of Soldiers: A Chronicle of Combat in Iraq is the standard by which future books about the war against Saddam Hussein will be judged

Madame Hillary's long march: If you want to know why Hillary Clinton might one day be president, says Bernard Chapin, Madame Hillary: The Dark Road to the White House provides all the clues

The six that changed the world: Steve Martinovich found The Rise of the Vulcans: The History of Bush's War Cabinet to be a fabulous history of the major personalities guiding the Bush administration's foreign policy

Many shades of folly: Sen. Zell Miller, to employ understatement, is a plain spoken man. Roger Banks says that's what makes A National Party No More: The Conscience of a Conservative Democrat such a valuable read, especially for Democrats

How Bill W. saved others by saving himself: Steve Martinovich thought Susan Cheever's My Name is Bill: Bill Wilson: His Life and the Creation of Alcoholics Anonymous is an excellent overview of a man who saved millions of lives by saving himself from the scourge of alcohol

Welcome to Bush country: John Podhoretz's Bush Country: How Dubya Became a Great President While Driving Liberals Insane is an amusing and insightful look at the hatred of George W. Bush, says Carol Devine-Molin

Quick words with R. Emmett Tyrrell: Bernard Chapin chats with the author of Madame Hillary: The Dark Road to the White House, a look at the former First Lady's life and what a Hillary! presidency could entail

A lone voice in the primetime wilderness: If you like John Stossel's reports, says Steve Martinovich, you'll love him in convenient book form with his part-biography, part-polemic Give Me a Break: How I Exposed Hucksters, Cheats, and Scam Artists and Became the Scourge of the Liberal Media...

The war for our survival: Steve Martinovich believes that Civilization and its Enemies: The Next Stage of History ranks as one of the most important books written in the post-September 11 era

Vermont's fight over same sex civil unions: He thought it was more than a little biased but Steven Martinovich found Civil Wars: The Battle for Gay Marriage an interesting account of the legal and political fight to establish civil unions in Vermont

Saving the world from itself the American way: Steve Martinovich thinks that David Frum and Richard Perle's An End to Evil: How to Win the War on Terror is very ambitious. Perhaps a little too ambitious

Evil's mouthpiece: Steven Martinovich finds Sean McMeekin's The Red Millionaire: A Political Biography of Willi Münzenberg, Moscow's Secret Propaganda Tsar a marvelous chronicle of one man's efforts to promote communism

A working holiday: Steve Martinovich was prepared to dislike the novel Mr. Golightly's Holiday but was pleasantly surprised when it overcame a weak beginning to ask serious questions of the reader

Espionage dressed up with editorial: Steve Martinovich found John Le Carré's Absolute Friends a perfectly good spy novel...until it became an out-of-control screed against the Iraq War

A problem with prosperity?: Gregg Easterbrook asks a very important question with The Progress Paradox: How Life Gets Better While People Feel Worse. Steve Martinovich wishes he had answered it

A journey to the end of the world: In 1921 a small party ventured into the remote Arctic in search of adventure with tragic results. Jennifer Niven tells their story in Ada Blackjack: A True Story of Survival in the Arctic and Steve Martinovich found it compelling

Fixing a broken legal system: Steve Martinovich found Alan N. Young's Justice Defiled: Perverts, Potheads, Serial Killers and Lawyers -- an indictment of the Canadian legal system -- very interesting though a little low brow at times

When worlds collide: Mark Wegierski examines Robert Sawyer's Hominids, a science fiction exploration of what could have been had Neanderthal not died out

The best books of 2003: Books editor Steve Martinovich announces his picks for the best books of 2003

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