By John R. Coyne Jr. - Special to The Washington Times
When his phone rings late at night, Lanny Davis tells us, it could be someone such as Martha Stewart, Rep. Charles B. Rangel, former Sen. Trent Lott or the CEO of Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines. Or it could be Gene Upshaw of the NFL's Players Association, Washington Redskins owner Dan Snyder or Penn State President Rodney Erickson. Published March 18, 2013
By David Wilezol - Special to The Washington Times
It is disappointing that Calvin Coolidge is consistently relegated to the hinterlands of America's presidential landscape. There are several reasons for this. First, he is a victim of what Lincoln called the "silent artillery of time" -- the way the memory of any earthly thing fades with the years. Published March 14, 2013
By Joseph C. Goulden - Special to The Washington Times
Robert Gellately's incisive work could well be titled, "Stalin's Worst Blunder." It is the story of how his rejection of Marshall Plan aid in 1947, both for the Soviet Union and the Eastern European nations falling under its domination, precipitated the Cold War and eventually led to the economic collapse of the Soviet bloc. Published March 13, 2013
By James Srodes - Special to The Washington Times
If you buy only one history book for the rest of 2013, this should be the one. Book reviewers have long turned such phrases as "magisterial" and "masterpiece" into cliches. This book richly deserves far more effusive encomiums. I can only say that Kevin Phillips will change everything you think you know about our American Revolution and replace it with a deeper, richer understanding of the more complex and very human story of our founding. Published March 12, 2013
By Martin Rubin - Special to The Washington Times
The title hung awkwardly on this final collection of Christopher Isherwood's diaries inevitably raises the question: liberation from what? Certainly not from all the things that troubled him throughout the previous decades, scrupulously recounted again here: his libido, concern for his excessive drinking, health, appearance, financial stability, jealousy and other passions, fears about mortality and the struggle to believe in an afterlife. Published March 11, 2013
By Paul Davis - Special to The Washington Times
The assassination of President John F. Kennedy on Nov. 22, 1963, was the crime of the 20th century. Like many of the military and intelligence people I met while serving in the U.S. Navy and later as a Defense Department civilian employee, I believed Fidel Castro killed Kennedy. Kennedy attempted to kill the communist Cuban leader and the dictator announced publicly that he intended to return the favor. Published March 8, 2013
By James Srodes - Special to The Washington Times
As he approaches his 65th birthday this month, we find former Vice President Al Gore reduced to playing much the same role for the American left that Newt Gingrich serves for our nation's right, that of the intellectual court jester. Published March 7, 2013
By Martin Rubin - Special to The Washington Times
For all those readers who can't get enough of the Mitford clan, with their pet names and jokes, shrieks of laughter and shafts of barbed wit, here's yet more fodder. Readers of Nancy Mitford's books know about her Francophile tastes and her heroines' bliss -- a favorite Mitford word -- in the discovery of an aristocratic French lover. Published March 7, 2013
By Charles C. Johnson
David Freddoso's "Spin Masters: How the Media Ignored the Real News and Helped Re-elect Barack Obama" is essential reading for how the palace guard media stole the 2012 presidential election for Barack Obama. This wasn't an election, but a media selection. Published March 5, 2013
By David DesRosiers - Special to The Washington Times
On Feb. 15, a 150-foot asteroid buzzed by the Earth, and smaller meteors broke through the Russian sky. After reading Jonathan Last's "What to Expect When No One's Expecting: America's Coming Demographic Disaster," asteroids are the least of our worries. Published March 4, 2013
By Claire Hopley - Special to The Washington Times
Indira Ganesan's "Sweet as Honey" could be said to be about marriage, but like Virginia Woolf's "To the Lighthouse," which supplies this novel's epigraphs, it is also about love and families and, ultimately, about the passage of time and the ways we experience it. Published March 1, 2013
By Dalibor Rohac - Special to The Washington Times
Had Julius Caesar met George Washington in 1760, he would not have experienced much of a cultural shock. Both belonged to a small class of elites who enjoyed the fruits of slave labor and land rents. For most people, barely anything had changed in terms of standards of living or life expectancy during the 1,800 years separating the Roman statesman from the leader of the American Revolution. Published February 28, 2013
By Wes Vernon - Special to The Washington Times
When Ronald Reagan chose to hang a portrait of Calvin Coolidge in the White House Cabinet room, he was making a policy statement: Coolidge was a seriously underrated president, and the 30th president had a view of taxation in sync with his own. Six decades earlier, Coolidge had branded taxation that was "not absolutely required" as "only a species of legalized larceny." Published February 27, 2013
By James Srodes - Special to The Washington Times
Back in the mists of time when the White House press corps was much smaller and far less pompous, President Lyndon Johnson often called a small pool of regulars into the Cabinet Room to casually plant some off-the-record point he wanted made without being quoted. The point often came only after some lengthy, and usually earthy, LBJ yarn. Published February 27, 2013
By Gary Anderson - Special to The Washington Times
This is a "first report" e-book that was obviously rushed to publication. The definitive book on the Benghazi debacle still needs to be written, and this isn't it. "Benghazi: The Definitive Report" has problems. Published February 25, 2013
