Category: Book Notes

Guelzo on Robert E. Lee: “To Err on the Side of Absorbing Society’s Defaulters”

Guelzo on Robert E. Lee: “To Err on the Side of Absorbing Society’s Defaulters”

Allen C. Guel­zo, Robert E. Lee: A Life (New York: Knopf, 2021), 608 pages, illus., $35, Kin­dle $15.99. First pub­lished in The Amer­i­can Spec­ta­tor, 9 Novem­ber 2021. Please con­sid­er sub­scrib­ing (if you don’t already), to this ad-free web­site. You will receive reg­u­lar notices of new arti­cles as pub­lished. Just fill in your email in the right-hand pan­el under “sub­scribe & fol­low.” Your email address is giv­en to no one and remains a rid­dle wrapped in a mys­tery inside an enigma.

“Who’s that man on the horse?”…

…I asked my father at a young age. “That’s Lee—he led a South­ern army in the Civ­il War.”…

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Paul Courtenay 1934-2020: No Better Definition of a Pro

Paul Courtenay 1934-2020: No Better Definition of a Pro

It’s a shop­worn phrase, but Paul Courte­nay was a walk­ing ency­clo­pe­dia on Win­ston Churchill. We worked togeth­er on con­fer­ences, sem­i­nars, books and arti­cles for thir­ty years. He was a major con­trib­u­tor to Finest Hour, the Hills­dale Col­lege Churchill Project, to books and biogra­phies. Paul was indis­pens­able. And he is irreplaceable.

As edi­tor over those years I was con­stant­ly grate­ful that he was there. I had only to press his Her­aldry but­ton, his Smuts but­ton, his Mil­i­tary but­ton, his For­eign Affairs but­ton, his Book Review but­ton, for exact­ly what I need­ed. I nev­er dis­cov­ered how many such but­tons he had.…

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Memories: Goldwater and Kennedy: 20 and 55 Years On

Memories: Goldwater and Kennedy: 20 and 55 Years On

A Goldwater Inscription

22 Novem­ber 2018— A pho­tog­ra­ph­er friend sends along praise of Bar­ry Gold­wa­ter (1909-1998). The Sen­a­tor was not­ed por­tray­er of his beloved South­west: “I am read­ing an issue of Ari­zona High­ways devot­ed to his work. The only thing he was more pas­sion­ate about than pol­i­tics was his pho­tog­ra­phy. And he was a great cam­era­man.” Praise of one pho­tog­ra­ph­er for anoth­er is high recommendation.

His note remind­ed me of Peo­ple and Places, Goldwater’s fine book of pho­tographs, from canyons to Hopi. The depth of feel­ing for Arizona’s native peo­ples and nat­ur­al vis­tas in those pho­tos belies the pic­ture his ene­mies tried to paint of Gold­wa­ter when he ran for Pres­i­dent in 1964.…

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