Book Notes Archives - Richard M. Langworth

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

15 November 2021 Comments 0 Comments

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.”…

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

29 October 2020 Comments 3 Comments

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.…

Memories: Goldwater and Kennedy: 20 and 55 Years On

27 November 2018 Comments 2 Comments

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.…