Copyright 2008 The New York Sun Tue, 12 Aug 2008 02:22:29 -0400 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Christopher Willcox :: Stories from The New York Sun http://www.nysun.com/authors/Christopher+Willcox istoll@nysun.com (Ira Stoll) webmaster@nysun.com en-us CHRISTOPHER WILLCOX http://www.nysun.com/arts/whats-the-matter-with-thomas-frank/83646/ Tue, 12 Aug 2008 00:00:00 EST Although "The Wrecking Crew" (Metropolitan Books, 384 pages, $25) purports to be about conservatism, and its many "crimes," Thomas Frank's latest is actually far more instructive on the unsettled state of the Democratic Party and its current leftward drift. The author, who created a minor sensation with his best-selling "What's the Matter With Kansas?" is a trained historian with a pronounced affinity for the Frankfurt School and its neo-Marxist "critical theory" approach to culture and... CHRISTOPHER WILLCOX http://www.nysun.com/arts/a-nation-on-a-hill-ted-widmers-ark-of-liberties/82339/ Tue, 22 Jul 2008 00:00:00 EST Only a former speechwriter for President Clinton could write a history as replete as this one with equivocation, empty rhetoric, and triangulation. Ted Widmer's "Ark of the Liberties" (Hill and Wang, 384 pages, $25) presents itself as a survey of presidential leadership on the subject of freedom at home and abroad, though it's really not a history at all, but a tawdry score-settling enterprise designed to cast a favorable light on his former boss and previous Democratic presidents, and an... CHRISTOPHER WILLCOX http://www.nysun.com/arts/nixonland-chronicling-a-political-sea-change/78822/ Thu, 29 May 2008 00:00:00 EST You don't have to agree with everything in this monumental account of politics in the 1960s and 1970s to find Rick Perlstein's "Nixonland" (Scribner, 896 pages, $37.50) interesting and even engrossing. The book is a masterful retelling of the turbulent period between the crushing defeat of Barry Goldwater by Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964 and the equally stunning loss by George McGovern to Richard Nixon in 1972. Mr. Perlstein's use of the elections of 1964 and 1972 as ideological goalposts may be... CHRISTOPHER WILLCOX http://www.nysun.com/arts/dart-throwing-on-the-left/76696/ Tue, 20 May 2008 00:00:00 EST There is palpable triumphalism on the left these days, and it is very much in evidence with Arianna Huffington's and Eric Alterman's latest assaults on all things Republican. Ms. Huffington's "Right Is Wrong" has a kind of Chatty Kathy blogosphere tone to it that will delight the devotees of her Huffington Post. Mr. Alterman's "Why We're Liberals" is a far more serious, if deeply familiar, slog through the political traditions and principles that make Mr. Alterman so proud of himself. Before... CHRISTOPHER WILLCOX http://www.nysun.com/arts/view-from-the-right-a-conservative-history-of/75832/ Mon, 5 May 2008 00:00:00 EST Whatever its shortcomings — including a sharply polemical tone throughout and an occasional failure to differentiate between the democratic left and its totalitarian variant — "A Conservative History of the American Left" by Daniel J. Flynn (Crown Forum, 464 pages, $27.50) is a remarkable compendium of American utopian and collectivist follies. Its greatest strengths lie at 30,000 feet, where generalizations about the left's ideals and delusions concerning the creation of heaven on earth are... CHRISTOPHER WILLCOX http://www.nysun.com/arts/tabulating-the-price-of-war/74673/ Tue, 15 Apr 2008 00:00:00 EST The best clues to the Democratic Party talking points on the War in Iraq are usually found in the statements of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. Back when the war was going really badly, Mr. Reid was the first to pronounce it "lost." This formulation persisted for several months, even as facts on the ground suggested otherwise. Curiously, few news outlets took much notice when "lost" finally disappeared from the senator's grumblings. His next gambit — the absence of political progress and the... CHRISTOPHER WILLCOX http://www.nysun.com/arts/looking-back-in-anger-forward-in-revenge/73711/ Thu, 27 Mar 2008 00:00:00 EST Sooner or later, some thoughtful conservative will no doubt publish a balanced critique of the Bush administration, with appropriate nods to judicial appointments and tax policy and careful scrutiny of the War on Terrorism and, especially, domestic spending. "Reclaiming Conservatism" (Oxford University Press, 240 pages, $21.95), by Mickey Edwards, a former congressman from Oklahoma, is not that book. Essentially an expanded version of an article he penned in 2006 for the Nation (!), this book... CHRISTOPHER WILLCOX http://www.nysun.com/arts/meaning-of-life/72600/ Mon, 10 Mar 2008 00:00:00 EST On May 7, 1959, the celebrated British novelist and critic, C.P. Snow, gave a lecture at Cambridge University, entitled "The Two Cultures," in which he described a complete breakdown in communication between the scientific world and the humanities. Not only were most scientists of his day largely unexposed to the most important ideas and values found in literature and philosophy, he argued, but the rest of the otherwise well-educated population was profoundly ignorant of even the most... CHRISTOPHER WILLCOX http://www.nysun.com/arts/finding-democrats-in-the-pews/71649/ Thu, 21 Feb 2008 00:00:00 EST Many recent books have predicted, described, and celebrated the demise of the so-called religious right — that amalgam of conservative religious movements and sects that was never as coherent, well-organized, or threatening as its critics (and enemies) feared. Two of the most prominent recent examples come from self-proclaimed "progressive" evangelicals, Amy Sullivan and Jim Wallis. Ms. Sullivan's "The Party Faithful" (Scribner, 272 pages, $25) is a rollicking, if highly partisan, look at the... CHRISTOPHER WILLCOX http://www.nysun.com/arts/after-iraq/70742/ Tue, 5 Feb 2008 00:00:00 EST Ours will surely be remembered as an age of angry books. Whether it is a function of cable television punditry, a sharply divided electorate, or the simple economics of publishing, finger-pointing jeremiads are popping up all over. And what was once the entertainment niche of Ann Coulter and Al Franken has grown into a genre that includes economics (Naomi Klein's "The Shock Doctrine") and national defense (Chalmers Johnson's "Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic"). Hell's real fury... CHRISTOPHER WILLCOX http://www.nysun.com/arts/wars-weathered-snapshot/70677/ Mon, 4 Feb 2008 00:00:00 EST Hollywood may have suffered a self-inflicted Shock and Awe barrage when it produced four high-profile flops on the war on terror last year. Reese Witherspoon will need another "Legally Blonde" installment to recover from "Rendition" and Tom Cruise better find an old military uniform that fits after his more preachy-than-peachy "Lions for Lambs." But hey, that was the verdict of the American people. And, as we all surely know, Americans in general are sorely lacking in downtown sensibility... CHRISTOPHER WILLCOX http://www.nysun.com/arts/great-american-volunteer/69866/ Mon, 21 Jan 2008 00:00:00 EST Near the beginning of PBS's engrossing new documentary "American Idealist," on the life and career of Sargent Shriver, Bill Moyers appears onscreen to pronounce the founding director of the Peace Corps "the best all-around politician" he ever met — not an auspicious introduction unless you happen to be a fan of the mean-spirited self-righteousness that is the Moyers specialty. But hang on. Although it is an entirely uncritical paean to a life-long supporter of an ever-expanding federal... CHRISTOPHER WILLCOX http://www.nysun.com/arts/current-affairs/68323/ Wed, 19 Dec 2007 00:00:00 EST Any selection of notable books must be provisional, and this one is no exception. These are not necessarily the best written, the most profound, or even the most entertaining books of the year, although each of them possesses these qualities to one degree or another. What makes them important is a heady combination of timeliness, relevance, judgment and, occasionally, provocation in the service of truth. As such, they are must reads in a crowded and mostly disposable field. The two most... CHRISTOPHER WILLCOX http://www.nysun.com/arts/reeling-in-the-year/67712/ Fri, 7 Dec 2007 00:00:00 EST If "1968 With Tom Brokaw," a two-hour special airing Sunday night on the History Channel, attempted to be anything more than the television equivalent of a coffee-table book on a pivotal year in America's ongoing culture wars, it would be a serious disappointment. Fortunately, its aspirations are modest and its pleasures abundant. Its chief asset is its host, whose Midwestern amiability never flags. Whether he's doing a goofy, gushing interview with singer Arlo Guthrie on the meaning and myth... CHRISTOPHER WILLCOX http://www.nysun.com/arts/nixon-summed-up-magnificently/66985/ Mon, 26 Nov 2007 00:00:00 EST It may be true, as Richard Reeves noted in his own recent Nixon book, that the press was far more fascinated by the 37th president of the United States than the American people ever were. It is undoubtedly true that Nixon's political downfall was in large part a press-driven affair, and the high water point for politically charged "investigative journalism." But as the press baron Conrad Black argues in his doorstop of a book, "Richard M. Nixon: A Life in Full" (Public Affairs, 1,152 pages... CHRISTOPHER WILLCOX http://www.nysun.com/arts/saga-of-sacco-and-vanzetti/60558/ Wed, 15 Aug 2007 00:00:00 EST The 1927 executions of anarchists Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti had important elements in common with the Cold War executions of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg and the espionage conviction of Alger Hiss. All three cases caused an international furor, aggravated domestic political divisions, and provided a rallying point and short-term propaganda advantage for the left. Disputes over the evidence in each of these trials divided scholars, even families, and persisted for decades. What... CHRISTOPHER WILLCOX http://www.nysun.com/arts/nixon-kissinger-dealing-in-dtente/54606/ Wed, 16 May 2007 00:00:00 EST Robert Dallek would appear an ideal choice to write a 700-page book on President Nixon's collaboration with Henry Kissinger in the pursuit of realpolitik. Mr. Dallek has made a successful career of describing the links between presidential policy and private character. More importantly, Mr. Dallek has less ideological baggage than some other likely candidates, who would relish nothing more than one last shot at the reviled 37th president and his smarty-pants national security adviser. That... CHRISTOPHER WILLCOX http://www.nysun.com/arts/negotiation-of-the-titans/48993/ Wed, 21 Feb 2007 00:00:00 EST How did two flawed human beings, assisted by two brilliant and determined diplomats, alter the course of history and set the world on a path to global interdependence and previously unimaginable economic growth? This is the question Margaret MacMillan sets out to answer in "Nixon & Mao: The Week That Changed the World" (Random House, 432 pages, $27.95) — her quirky, often wonderful account of President Nixon's fateful 1976 trip to China. As in her previous book on the Versailles peace... Christopher Willcox http://www.nysun.com/arts/to-russia-with-love/41712/ Tue, 17 Oct 2006 00:00:00 EST It has taken 25 years to bring Warren Beatty's "Reds" to DVD, primarily because the writer/director/producer/star had, what were for him, uncharacteristically conservative reservations about the new technology. The intervening years have paradoxically strengthened and weakened the argument for the merits of a film that probably could not be made today. As Mr. Beatty points out in one of the "special features" accompanying this admirably produced disc, released today by Paramount Home Video... CHRISTOPHER WILLCOX http://www.nysun.com/arts/lost-to-the-sands-of-time/41183/ Mon, 9 Oct 2006 00:00:00 EST The remarkable book "The Man Time Forgot" by Isaiah Wilner (HarperCollins, 342 pages, $26.95), appears chiefly interested in setting the record straight on who should be credited with the creation of the world's most successful news magazine. That would be Briton Hadden, the brilliant and mercurial editor who had the misfortune of, first, dying young, and, last, having an insecure and disloyal business partner in Henry Luce. Mr. Wilner makes his case convincingly on the basis of archival... CHRISTOPHER WILLCOX http://www.nysun.com/arts/first-modern-conservative/39858/ Mon, 18 Sep 2006 00:00:00 EST Credit HBO for having the savvy to buy a timely and revisionist documentary on the late Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona, produced in fine style by the senator's granddaughter and studded with more luminaries of the left than a MoveOn.org convention. Even Teddy Kennedy, looking slightly less bloated than usual, toddles on camera to make nice about good old Barry. Ditto James Carville, Al Franken, and Senator Clinton, who practically beams when she notes she was a volunteer "Goldwater Girl"... CHRISTOPHER WILLCOX http://www.nysun.com/arts/guilt-compromise/39109/ Wed, 6 Sep 2006 00:00:00 EST Ward Just's novels are something of a throwback — he writes powerful narratives about attractive people surviving and, occasionally, prevailing under difficult circumstances. And he writes so beautifully — lucid prose full of arresting turns of phrase and formal, melancholic reflection — that you quickly overlook the politics, which are predictably worrisome. But then no one's proposing him as a candidate to fix the federal tax code, settle important constitutional issues, or figure out how we... CHRISTOPHER WILLCOX http://www.nysun.com/arts/nasty-brutish-and-short-life/35588/ Fri, 7 Jul 2006 00:00:00 EST The only thing that kept Ernesto Che Guevera from joining the pantheon of monsters — Lenin, Stalin, Mao — who contributed mightily to world misery and suffering was his abysmal leadership and lack of organizational skill. But his ambitions were evident in this passage from a famous speech he gave early on: "Hatred is an element of struggle, unbending hatred for the enemy, which pushes a human being beyond his limitations, making him an effective, violent, selective, and cold-blooded killing... CHRISTOPHER WILLCOX http://www.nysun.com/arts/real-adventure-on-the-high-seas/35655/ Fri, 7 Jul 2006 00:00:00 EST The History Channel has often demonstrated a shrewd ability to capitalize on pop cultural phenomena and news to draw in an audience. And fans of Johnny Depp's vamping performance in "Pirates of the Caribbean," soon to be reprised in theaters worldwide, may well tune in Sunday night at 8 p.m. for the History Channel's two-hour special on the "golden age" of pirating. But unlike Jack Sparrow, the Depp character reportedly modeled on the Rolling Stones' Keith Richards, the real pirates were short... CHRISTOPHER WILLCOX http://www.nysun.com/arts/cataloging-the-success-of-conservatism/35281/ Thu, 29 Jun 2006 00:00:00 EST Political junkies may be disappointed with this compendium of conservative thought, tradition, and influence. Search in vain in "American Conservatism: An Encyclopedia" (Intercollegiate Studies Institute,1,000 pages, $55) for an entry on Tom DeLay, Bill Frist, or Rick Santorum. But G.K. Chesterton? Check. T.S. Eliot? Check. The Kristol family? It's a trifecta: Check and check and check again. Oh well. Politicos still may look forward to the annual, and wonderful, "Almanac of American Politics."... CHRISTOPHER WILLCOX http://www.nysun.com/arts/hope-for-the-horse-opera/34973/ Fri, 23 Jun 2006 00:00:00 EST Thanks are due to Robert Duvall, whose clout as an actor probably got the American Movie Channel (AMC) interested in presenting its first ever original production with this two-part Western that debuts Sunday night. There may be plenty of quibbles: The story could be stronger, the performances are uneven, cliches abound. But this is an unapologetic romance of the Old West, and quite entertaining on its own terms. Two of the most enduring genres of Hollywood's Golden Age - the Western and the... CHRISTOPHER WILLCOX http://www.nysun.com/arts/unregulated-flow-of-paranoia/34323/ Tue, 13 Jun 2006 00:00:00 EST Midway through this fetid chronicle of genius and madness, "Broken Genius" (Macmillan, 298 pages, $27.95), Joel Shurkin reminds us that in classical Greek tragedy the hero's life is divided into three stages: moira, named for one of the Fates who controls destiny; hubris, the pride that precedes the fall; and nemesis, for the god of retribution who demands payment for hubris.It's certainly appropriate to a biography of Nobel Laureate William Shockley, who quite literally put the silicon in... CHRISTOPHER WILLCOX http://www.nysun.com/arts/hospital-of-war/33009/ Fri, 19 May 2006 00:00:00 EST The American people are currently impatient with the progress of the war in Iraq, and the Left and many liberals are counting on this impatience to reverse or at least retard conservative political trends that have been dominant since the 1980s. It's a fair enough bet, especially in the short-term, but it carries enormous risks on the downside, all of which are discernible in HBO's gut-wrenching documentary on emergency medical personnel in Baghdad. "Baghdad ER," which premieres Sunday night at... CHRISTOPHER WILLCOX http://www.nysun.com/arts/first-battle-in-an-ongoing-war/31640/ Wed, 26 Apr 2006 00:00:00 EST There are many good reasons to read Mark Bowden's authoritative account of the seizure of the American Embassy in Tehran and the subsequent hostage crisis that electrified and, ultimately, inflamed the nation. The most compelling and relevant ones concern the profound failure of American intelligence that preceded the takeover and the hard-nosed but fair analysis of the Carter administration's handling of the crisis. The talented author of "Black Hawk Down," Mr. Bowden knows his way around the... CHRISTOPHER WILLCOX http://www.nysun.com/arts/imperial-fantasies/31003/ Fri, 14 Apr 2006 00:00:00 EST The key to understanding the true import of David Hare's theatrical screed on Iraq is found halfway through Act II, when a character identified as the Brit in New York announces: "On September 11, America changed. Yes. It got much stupider." Although dressed up as an expose of President Bush and Prime Minister Blair going to war, this play is really about the British intelligentsia's by-now chronic contempt for all things Yank. Anybody who has been to Britain recently, or even read an English... CHRISTOPHER WILLCOX http://www.nysun.com/arts/more-than-a-technicolor-dream/30571/ Fri, 7 Apr 2006 00:00:00 EST A television adaptation of a seminal book from the Bible may not be the most promising fare, but this two-part miniseries, which runs on Monday and Tuesday, is a surprisingly worthy effort. It certainly beats the pants off Cecil B. DeMille's cheese festival, which featured the iconic Charlton Heston as a kind of ironman Moses. And it even appears in a few places to take religion seriously, which is more than can be said of most such epics. There's plenty of showbiz hooey here, of course... CHRISTOPHER WILLCOX http://www.nysun.com/arts/is-race-only-skin-deep/28652/ Tue, 7 Mar 2006 00:00:00 EST At last, a reality television show about something important: no insect eating, no bad singing, no nubile bodies surviving suggestively, no Trumpery, no skating with no-account celebrities, for God's sake. But just when you thought it was safe once again to turn on that telly, the folks at FX have gone and spoiled it all by taking a marvelous premise - a black and a white family exchange identities - and producing a middling stinker. Not that there aren't some compelling moments when the Wurgel... CHRISTOPHER WILLCOX http://www.nysun.com/arts/whispering-from-the-shadows/27930/ Wed, 22 Feb 2006 00:00:00 EST Great teachers are often subversive - breaking the furniture that forms their students' assumptions, provoking them, challenging them, flirting intellectually, and, occasionally, not only intellectually. It's certainly no accident that the fraught relationship between a charismatic teacher and promising student is a recurring dramatic theme in all media. It usually works. In "The Man on Whom Nothing Was Lost: The Grand Strategy of Charles Hill" (Houghton Mifflin, 368 pages, $25), Molly Worthen... CHRISTOPHER WILLCOX http://www.nysun.com/arts/decade-the-music-died/27141/ Tue, 7 Feb 2006 00:00:00 EST With President Carter running around building houses for the poor, writing bad novels, and offering sage commentary on everything from furniture to ethics, it's possible to overlook the little matter of his disastrous presidency. The most valuable contribution of Philip Jenkins's new book (Oxford University Press, 352 pages, $28) is its powerful reminder of how bad things really got before America was ready to take a gamble on an elderly movie star. It's all here in Technicolor: the skyhigh... CHRISTOPHER WILLCOX http://www.nysun.com/arts/bush-at-war-as-told-by-fred-barnes/25883/ Mon, 16 Jan 2006 00:00:00 EST The events and consequences of George W. Bush's controversial and extraordinarily consequential presidency will provide full employment for generations of historians: the disputed first election result; the merciless and devastating attack on the homeland; the war it provoked, which our children and their children will likely be fighting in one way or another; the enormous growth and increased presence of the federal government; the formal debut of the GOP as the new majority party, and the... CHRISTOPHER WILLCOX http://www.nysun.com/arts/seeking-reagans-rosebud/24646/ Mon, 19 Dec 2005 00:00:00 EST The truly remarkable public mourning that followed the death of Ronald Reagan in 2004 remains a largely unexamined phenomenon. The level and spontaneity of the grieving, together with the adulatory, week-long media coverage by a press corps that was famously either skeptical of or hostile toward his policies, was especially notable, inasmuch as Reagan had been out of the public eye for years. Even the careful stage-management of the spectacle by his formidable widow, eerily reminiscent of the... CHRISTOPHER WILLCOX http://www.nysun.com/arts/profiles-in-lacking-courage/22366/ Tue, 1 Nov 2005 00:00:00 EST This classic muckrake on the foibles of the political left is both loads of fun and deeply disturbing. The fun comes from the shabby behavior and general nuttiness on offer; the disturbance concerns the limited amount of exposure some of this rich material has received in the media. As Peter Schweizer notes in the introduction to "Do as I Say (Not as I Do)" (Doubleday, 272 pages, $22.95), we are all deeply familiar with Rush Limbaugh's prescription drug problems, William Bennett's gambling... CHRISTOPHER WILLCOX http://www.nysun.com/arts/cranky-liberals/21020/ Wed, 5 Oct 2005 00:00:00 EST The key to understanding Haynes Johnson's deeply flawed book, "The Age of Anxiety" (Harcourt, 609 pages, $26), on the rise and fall of Joe McCarthy, and the anti-communist crusade he pursued, is found on page 460: Whatever McCarthy's personal qualities, McCarthyism in one form or another outlives the man. Its impact on our politics, and on the way Americans view their leaders and their government, has been profound. It continues to this day, and we are forced to come to grips with it. Just in... CHRISTOPHER WILLCOX http://www.nysun.com/arts/absolving-pius-xii/18564/ Mon, 15 Aug 2005 00:00:00 EST John Cornwell, the author of the "Hitler's Pope," has backed away from some of the more sensational assertions he made in his best-selling book about Pius XII. But, then, his money has already arrived safely at his bank, and he's also locked that presumably lucrative gig at Vanity Fair as a - gasp - Vatican correspondent. Predictably, his qualifiers and recantations, unlike his accusations, have been underreported. If Rabbi David Dalin's new book (Regnery, 161 pages, $27.95) does nothing more... CHRISTOPHER WILLCOX http://www.nysun.com/arts/remembering-the-great-communicator/17922/ Tue, 2 Aug 2005 00:00:00 EST There is no precise English word for this collection of fond and often thoughtful essays on Ronald Reagan that the late president's former political operative, Michael Deaver, has wrought. In academia it would be called a Festschrift, a term borrowed from German to describe a celebration of a professor's intellectual contributions, often penned by his colleagues and students. In a very real sense, this is entirely appropriate for a man whose political career was - first, last, and always... CHRISTOPHER WILLCOX http://www.nysun.com/arts/pulpits-vs-the-pews/17214/ Tue, 19 Jul 2005 00:00:00 EST Question: Why are so many news stories on religion in America about sex, politics, and litigation? Answer: Religion in America is grappling, as seldom before, with hot-button issues that congregate under the broad topics of sex, politics, and litigation. Whether it's the sexual abuse of teenagers by Roman Catholic priests, or the ordination of active homosexuals in the Episcopal Church, or the burgeoning influence of evangelicals in national politics, or where the line ought to go that... CHRISTOPHER WILLCOX http://www.nysun.com/arts/stalins-bad-days/16116/ Mon, 27 Jun 2005 00:00:00 EST If anyone had questions about the recent spike of historical interest in Josef Stalin, the answer was surely provided by the goose-stepping hoopla in Red Square on the 60th anniversary of the end of World War II. The Cold War may indeed be over, but the war of ideas is, as always, at full throttle. For this reason, history's assessment of "Uncle Joe" is absolutely central to the debate that is shaping the historical record and political future of Russia, its relationship with its neighbors, and... CHRISTOPHER WILLCOX http://www.nysun.com/arts/what-are-you-looking/15953/ Thu, 23 Jun 2005 00:00:00 EST The theme of this remarkable biography of America's most famous painting is the dramatic shifts in perception over time of both its artistic worth and cultural significance. As the author repeatedly demonstrates, Grant Wood's iconic portrait of a grim Iowan with a pitchfork and his tight-lipped consort has been a virtual Rorschach test for critics and the general public. What people found in the painting was often an accurate reflection of their own transient interests and concerns. This is an... CHRISTOPHER WILLCOX http://www.nysun.com/arts/too-much-is-not-enough/15394/ Tue, 14 Jun 2005 00:00:00 EST It should come as no surprise that the author of "The Opportunity: America's Moment to Alter History's Course" (Public Affairs, 242 pages, $25) was able to make an effortless transition from George W. Bush's administration to the Council on Foreign Relations. As this book demonstrates again and again, Richard Haass, a principal adviser to Secretary of State Powell, was never really part of the Bush administration. He must have a very red nose from holding it so much through three long years of... CHRISTOPHER WILLCOX http://www.nysun.com/arts/what-made-them-talk/14581/ Fri, 27 May 2005 00:00:00 EST Don't stand on one foot waiting for the film version of this devastating history of the political left in Hollywood. The film colony obviously prefers romance and myth to the facts, and nothing gets a salute faster around a Bel Air swimming pool than a sanctimonious reference to the blacklist. So let's begin by stipulating, as Ronald and Allis Radosh clearly do, that the blacklist was wrong. Artists, even empty-headed actors, should not be denied a livelihood because of their political beliefs... CHRISTOPHER WILLCOX http://www.nysun.com/arts/not-exactly-the-glory-days/11325/ Tue, 29 Mar 2005 00:00:00 EST Defining and satisfying the public's legitimate interest in the private lives of American presidents has never been an easy task for serious historians or journalists. What is appropriate and germane, and what salacious and irrelevant? Increasingly, the balance has been shifting away from circumspection toward full and, at times, fulsome, disclosure. Blame it on Monica or a more general celebrity mania, which now grips all sectors of contemporary publishing and broadcasting, but there seems to... CHRISTOPHER WILLCOX http://www.nysun.com/arts/half-century-of-wars-small-large/9900/ Tue, 1 Mar 2005 00:00:00 EST "War Since 1945" (Reaktion Books, 232 pages, $24.95) is a curious book, in that it provides a detailed and invaluable guide to the variety of military experience since World War II, while at the same time drawing some rather cosmic conclusions that appear to be little more than second- or third-hand conventional wisdom. The author, Jeremy Black, a noted British military historian, is at his best in his analysis of individual conflicts, what went right or wrong and why. There is an especially... CHRISTOPHER WILLCOX http://www.nysun.com/arts/power-of-wishful-thinking/8919/ Tue, 8 Feb 2005 00:00:00 EST Ronald Reagan, it turns out, was almost as scary a figure to some of his realpolitik aides as to his critics in Western Europe and the former Soviet Bloc. Dreamer, moralist, and idealist are some of the words that might describe the 40th president of the United States, according to Paul Lettow's fascinating and, at times, unnerving account of what might be called Mr. Reagan's "hidden agenda" on nuclear weapons. Some of the most interesting material in this book (Random House, 352 pages, $25... CHRISTOPHER WILLCOX http://www.nysun.com/arts/chronicle-of-a-dreadful-era/5194/ Mon, 22 Nov 2004 00:00:00 EST A critical fact of the 20th century is that, while Hitler died holed up in a bunker, Lenin, Stalin, and Mao died in bed. Justice, at least in this world, was denied their untold millions of victims. Unlike the Germans, the Russians and Chinese never suffered occupation and partition as a consequence of the monumental crimes committed in their name. There remains in both countries a vast reservoir of sympathy for the ends, if not the means, of the communists. This vastly complicates the recovery... CHRISTOPHER WILLCOX http://www.nysun.com/arts/next-superpower/4227/ Wed, 3 Nov 2004 00:00:00 EST Every now and then two books appear that, taken together, amount to something like a conversation. Such is the case with T.R. Reid's "The United States of Europe" (Penguin, 320 pages, $25.95) and "Free World" by Timothy Garton Ash (Random House, 304 pages, $24.95). Both deal with the growing disconnect between the United States and the states forming a still somewhat less than perfect union across the Atlantic. Both authors are experienced journalists: Mr. Reid has worked for many years for the...