Eight days from now comes the most controversial day of the year. Easter bunnies and eggs (if you can afford the latter) mask the debate, but Gary Habermas jumps into it in On the Resurrection: Refutations (B&H Academic, 2024). Unlike other books that merely assert what the Gospels say, Habermas painstakingly undermines one by one the arguments that Jesus was Read More ›
Rational people differ on Who God is or what gods are, but should we all believe that the world is the product of intelligent design? That’s what a smart New York columnist, a smart Roman essayist who died in 43 BC, and the smart Discovery Institute researchers who follow science, all contend. The new book, by New York Times columnist Read More ›
Sixty thousand Union soldiers led by General William T. Sherman killed the Confederacy with their famous “March to the Sea” in 1864—but 20,000 enslaved blacks liberated themselves by marching with them. Bennett Parten’s Somewhere Toward Freedom (Simon & Schuster, 2025) tells that often-neglected story and brings out emancipation excitement. Parten also reports disappointment as Reconstruction faltered, land-reform lagged, and Somewhere Read More ›
With the new administration that’s nine days away committed to revising rules regarding transgenderism, journalists reporting the debate should be informed biblically, biologically, and historically. J. Alan Branch’s Affirming God’s Image (Lexham Press, 2019) does well on all three dimensions in a tight 144 pages. Branch shows that participants in the ancient Roman cult of Cybele seemed to embrace transgenderism. Read More ›
The Wall Street Journal stated, “Robert Harris is incapable of writing an unenjoyable book,” and that’s true in the present tense. Harris is in line to hit 70 in 2027 and at some point his skills will diminish, but now… wow, this former journalist with a love of history knows how to write, as his two most recent novels (both Read More ›
November, a month that culminates in Thanksgiving, is a good time to review history books—so let’s gallop through eight, starting with Takeover: Hitler’s Final Rise to Power (Knopf, 2024). Timothy Ryback weaves a story of betrayals, backroom deals, and one often-ignored aspect: the support Hitler received from dominant media. Publishing mogul Alfred Hugenberg thought the 1,600 newspapers he controlled would Read More ›
One recipe for a good book or movie: Place sympathetic characters facing personal difficulties within a large looming disaster. Think Casablanca, or The Lord of the Rings, or The Cypresses Believe in God. Joseph Kanon’s Shanghai (Simon & Schuster, 2024) is a terrific novel set in the Chinese city within a 1939 vortex of fascism and communism, sex and violence—and Read More ›
Victor David Hanson’s The End of Everything: How Wars Descend into Annihilation (Basic, 2024) has chapters on the destruction of Thebes, Carthage, Constantinople, and Tenochtitlan that the author, or a good editor, should have abridged. Maybe the repetition, though, can drum into our heads a lesson we try to keep out: “Modern societies are not immune to the horror of Read More ›
On July 4 we celebrated the rare revolution that worked. This page focuses on two wonderfully readable books about the mostly unsuccessful 17th century revolution that preceded America’s 18th century one, and the partly successful 19th century revolution that followed. Jonathan Healey’s The Blazing World: A New History of Revolutionary England, 1603-1689 (Knopf, 2023) features vivid, specific detail. Some on Read More ›