Book Reviews

Review of The Demon of Unrest

Book Author: Erik Larson

tags: history 

Before the war, there was a war. Returning to another little-known and little-researched period in history, author Erik Larson sheds new light on the time before the start of the Civil War, from the last days of the Buchanan presidency to the surrender of Fort Sumter.

The Demon of Unrest, as The Splendid and the Vile before it, comes alive with a lively array of diverse characters. Robert Anderson, the deeply religious commanding officer in charge of the defense of Fort Sumter, torn between his allegiance to the Union and his bond to the South, is faced with impossible choices that could determine the balance between war and peace. Edmund Ruffin, the fire-eating secessionist who has struggled his entire life to bring this colossal conflict to fruition, is crippled by unbearable personal loss. James Hammond, famous for his declaration that “cotton is King,” treats, rather, the lusts of his flesh as the master of his actions and is nearly ruined by stunning revelations of sexual deviance. Jefferson Davis, the former Secretary of War selected by the Confederacy to be its first leader, is disappointed that a compromise could not be reached, yet bound by honor to remain with his native South. President-elect Abraham Lincoln also makes a prominent appearance in this tale of hubris and heartbreak, as the subtitle describes: recently elected as the first Republican to ever hold the highest office in the land, he is still courting the loyalties of rival factions within his party and the nation. Trying desperately to avoid a breakup of the nation he loves, and for which he is willing to die, the opening shots of a war that will end up claiming his life could not be more trying for the Illinois native.

The intimate and the monumental are captured herein with equal talent. The private doubts, the moral failings and triumphs, and the moments of decision that could hold devastating consequences are all on full display. The anxieties, passions, and contradictions of the men and women caught in the vortex of this period make compromise nearly impossible. Central to the narrative, Larson includes the inseparable sense of honor held by both Northerners, as heirs of the founders, and Southerners, as members of an elite society which goes back even further than the founders the North claims to speak for. The code duello itself, Larson shows, could not describe the opening scenes better, for, like a duel—seconds and all—the prelude to the Civil War was governed by strict rules, personal pride, and the weight of reputation. Yet, as in any duel, misjudgment or hesitation could prove fatal. Every decision carried a dual edge: to act could ignite conflict; to hesitate could invite dishonor.

I have stated in the past how masterfully Larson weaves the story together. This is no exception. If anything, it is an even better example of the talent of a great historian. It is also my habit to criticize elements I dislike in a work—any work—yet, alas, to find such elements in this narrative proves nearly impossible. This book goes to show that history is lived by real people: some will go down in history as men who played a prominent role, while others will be largely forgotten by the annals of history. But these moments of fear, betrayed honor, and heartbreak, as the experiment in democracy seemed to be tearing apart, were lived, to an equal degree, by all; and all, however minor, played a role. Without Fort Sumter, there may well never have been a Civil War. Without The Demon of Unrest, this fort, and the people in it, may never have received their due.

Review Written by C. A. Gerber

March 15th, 2026

Review of Battle for the American Mind

Book Author: Pete Hegseth & David Goodwin

tags: culture, Christian 

What has happened to our kids? To receive an answer to this question is the same as to receive an answer to the question: what has happened to our education system, for while their formative years are in swing, it is the teachers who exert the most influence, change the most lives, and determine, in a way, the future beliefs of the children of America.

In taking another look at exactly how education turned into indoctrination, and virtue turned into values, former FOX News Host—and now Secretary of War—Pete Hegseth, a publicly educated yet concerned parent, and David Goodwin, an experienced classical educator, explore the beginnings of progressive ideology in America, and they go back further than the normal thesis, which places the blame entirely on the shoulders of John Dewey and the pragmatists. Rather, argue the authors, the true culprits are those who, as far back as the Enlightenment, but especially later, with the origin of the social gospel, began to shift the focus of education away from the cultivation of virtue and the transmission of truth—the Western paideia—to the reshaping of society. However noble the goal, the result was catastrophic, argues Hegseth, for it inoculated students against the idea that truth and wisdom could be learned, instead positing that truth and wisdom must be effected—that is, that the measure of a society’s goodness was not its ability or lack thereof to conform to a certain standard, but rather its capacity to mold the standard to a progressive secular ideal.

Challenging even the perception of modern-day conservatives that patriotism is a measure of an education’s virtue, Hegseth argues that patriotism for a nation, though not an inherent vice, has replaced the patriotism of the Old World: that is, the patriotism holding to the idea that man’s final kingdom, final destination, and final allegiance is not earthly, but heavenly.

Moving through history, from the conflict of the Enlightenment and the Revolution to the emergence of the Social Gospel, Darwinism and its fruits, and lastly the pragmatist educational system of John Dewey, Hegseth and Goodwin show rather than tell the erosion of the classical ideal. The paideia upon which our nation was founded regarded virtue and philosophy—or the love of wisdom—as fundamental. Virtue and wisdom were not proper to the individual, but to the citizen. They were not synonymous with the word used today—“values”—for values can be proper to each man, different and at times contradictory—justice and mercy, truth and love—depending on how they are applied. For the authors, virtue, the shaping of the mind toward the truth, and the molding of the heart toward the telos, is the goal of education, a goal at which our culture has simply failed to arrive.

The authors’ argument is persuasive, but uncomfortable, for it makes the reader realize that even that which he or she considered to be “conservative” was borrowed from that which is the opposite. They do not mix terms and avoid many of the strawmen used by modern classicists. Unfortunately, in their representation of the Founding Fathers as deists molded more by the Enlightenment than by Christian doctrine, they seem to be falling into the error they diagnose. This, of course, does not nullify the thesis, but it leaves room for them to grow, and makes the reader think critically about thinking critically. Furthermore, though the critique is powerful, they seem to focus more on the problems than the solutions. They do address the why behind this: it’s obvious that solutions will vary from situation to situation, and what applies in one case will not apply in another. Easy to understand, the book’s strength lies in its ability to bring the history of education into perspective, incorporating Christian truths into the final analysis.

When virtue is abandoned, when reason is thrown to the dogs and is no longer able to determine the legitimacy or accuracy of a statement, then the failure is not simply pedagogical, but spiritual. It leaves students untethered—able to recite facts but unable to explain the deeper meaning behind them; willing to change culture but without knowing what culture should be changed to. Social engineering no longer produces citizens, but rather, it produces sycophants.

Review Written by C. A. Gerber

March 15th, 2026

Review of The Absurdity of Unbelief

Book Author: Jeffrey D. Johnson

tags: philosophy, Christian 

Secularists are prone to portray the battle over worldview as a conflict between the outdatedness of religious belief and the science of progress, but what if this dichotomy is not only false, but completely reverses the reality of reality itself? Jeffrey D. Johnson sets out to prove in his book, The Absurdity of Unbelief, not only that Christianity is a viable alternative to the worldviews and religious dogmas of our world today, but that it is the only comprehensive system of thought that accurately relies upon the use of reason as proof, and not an obstacle to the radical claims made by the Biblical account.

To read this book does not require a degree in advanced philosophy or theological thought, though it does require a clear head, a concentrated mind, and a willing spirit, as well as a healthy dose of caffeine. Jeffrey Johnson does a masterful job not only at defending his central thesis, but at anticipating objections to it, and addressing them properly.

Beginning, in part one with a critique of the significant worldview of today, including those which would seem to the naked eye to not conflict with the truth claims of Christianity -such as Pascalian existentialism-, but which in reality are a substantive threat to the progress of the gospel.

As Johnson writes in the introduction to the book: “Because all non-Christian worldviews are indefensible, it is not sufficient for skeptics to attack Christianity without also defending the foundation for their own unbelief. Everyone has a worldview, even atheists and skeptics, but only the Christian worldview is not self-contradictory.” The author digs into the premises upon which the rival religions that threaten Christianity are based, and with Schaefferian rigor exposes them as frauds, self-contradictory theses which are indefensible from the start when we clearly identify what they state and why they state it. From naturalism to existentialism, to Nietzschean nihilism, Johnson progressively shows the decline, or devolution of these worldviews, not as coherent systems of truth, but as intellectual cul-de-sacs that collapse under the weight of their own presuppositions. When followed to their logical conclusions, Johnson argues, these systems ultimately undermine the very tools they depend upon. Naturalism erodes the basis for reason itself by its denial of a designer or law-giver; existentialism dissolves truth into subjective preference; nihilism, as articulated by figures like Friedrich Nietzsche, leaves humanity stranded in a universe devoid of meaning or moral grounding which calls into question the very reason for which they proposed their system of thought in the first place.

In part two, Johnson illuminates the truth on some of the greatest objections to systemic Christian theology; from the Trinity to the reliability of Scripture, and the bogeyman called Evil. Destroying both the dualistic Christianity which sees evil as an equal force with good -in a very Thomist way, though the author, an avowed anti-Thomist would reject the label-, and the existentialist experience-based faith that treats reality as that which is true for the inner self and ultimately leads to the Christian nihilism of figures like Paul Tillich and Rudolf Bultmann, Johnson instead proposes the central thesis of Christianity as a revelation of reality, and reason as an instrument, and not a master of the created order. Using the presuppositional apologetics approach of Francis Schaeffer and Cornelius Van Til -a system, which, as a classical theistic apologist, I find problematic but still useful-, Johnson sheds light on the fact that the doctrines of Christianity are not simply doctrines, but facts. The Trinity, as an example, is, by necessity present, for, if God is love, and to love implies a lover and one who is loved, then it is necessary that God should have loved prior to creating us; yet who else could He love if he was not the trinitarian God presented in Scripture?

What appears mysterious, he argues, is not therefore contradictory; rather, the difficulty often lies in humanity’s limited understanding of divine realities. The doctrines critics most often dismiss as absurd, are the doctrines which provide the basis for a coherent worldview and systematic form of belief. Unbelief, and not belief, is absurd, irrational and self-destructive. The choice, argues Johnson, is not between faith and reason, not between religion and science, but between rationality and irrationality, truth and falsehood, light and darkness.

Review Written by C. A. Gerber

March 15th, 2026

Review of The Titans of the Twentieth Century

Book Author: Michael Mandelbaum

tags: history, leadership 

To make history requires a great man—or an evil one.

In this book, historian and foreign policy scholar Michael Mandelbaum examines eight leaders who shaped the first half of the twentieth century, exploring the lives, accomplishments, legacies, and leadership of Winston S. Churchill, Vladimir Lenin, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Mahatma Gandhi, Mao Zedong, David Ben-Gurion, and Adolf Hitler. Drawing lessons from the leadership and actions of each of these “great” men, Mandelbaum examines their personalities, governing styles, and paths to power, offering a distinctly personal view of the men behind the public image. After presenting short—if somewhat superficial—biographical sketches of each figure, Mandelbaum analyzes the cultural environments in which they lived, explaining how the three defining events of the early twentieth century—World War I, The Great Depression, and World War II—shaped these men, sometimes for good, but far more often for evil.

Do not let the title deceive you, however, for Mandelbaum does not examine the titans of the entire twentieth century. Figures such as Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, John F. Kennedy, and Henry Kissinger are conspicuously absent. Instead, the author focuses exclusively on the period between 1900 and 1950. While some of the men discussed—such as Mao Zedong and David Ben-Gurion—remained influential well beyond this timeframe, all of them reached their zenith during these years.

My critique here is not entirely negative. The first half of the twentieth century alone presents a cast of historical figures that has filled thousands of pages and hundreds of books. The fact that Mandelbaum manages to include so many of them within a single volume speaks to his skill as an author. Although I would have appreciated chapters on figures such as Joseph Stalin, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Benito Mussolini, and Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, their absence leaves room for the possibility of a second volume.

The first half of the twentieth century was an era of immense upheaval. Ideologies of both the extreme left and the extreme right competed for supremacy—represented by Mao Zedong and Vladimir Lenin on one side and Adolf Hitler on the other. The British Empire, which had dominated the previous century and a half, was entering its twilight, while a new global power—envisioned by Woodrow Wilson and Franklin D. Roosevelt as an “arsenal of democracy”—was rising in its place. Events in the Middle East and Asia brought figures such as David Ben-Gurion and Mahatma Gandhi to the forefront of world politics. Meanwhile, the Great Depression propelled Franklin Roosevelt to power, and World War II ultimately brought about the downfall of Adolf Hitler. During these decades millions perished—under Lenin’s revolution and the later purges of Stalin, under Hitler’s orchestration of the Holocaust, and under Mao Zedong’s brutal rule in China.

While some chapters are stronger than others—particularly those on Churchill, Hitler, and Ben-Gurion—the book as a whole provides valuable insights into the leadership, personalities, and legacies of these influential figures. Most of these leaders—though not all—possessed magnetic personalities capable of inspiring extraordinary loyalty. Such charisma could lead followers into battle or over a precipice. From Wilson’s utopian rhetoric to Hitler’s virulent racial ideology, their ability to inspire and mobilize people helped secure their place as dominant figures of the era.

Furthermore, each of these men possessed a firm ideological conviction. Lenin’s atheistic Marxism led him to establish the first truly socialist state in history, while Churchill’s almost reverential view of the British Empire enabled him to rally the British people to “never give up.” The backgrounds of these figures also profoundly shaped their actions. David Ben-Gurion, for instance, found elements of Marxist rhetoric appealing but ultimately subordinated those ideas to his Zionist convictions—beliefs formed in his Polish homeland.

For serious history enthusiasts, the book may feel somewhat brief and occasionally superficial. Nevertheless, the leadership lessons Mandelbaum draws from these figures remain meaningful. His own perspective is clearly present throughout the work. Coming from a Jewish background, he expresses particular sympathy for Ben-Gurion, while his foreign policy realism leads him to critique Woodrow Wilson’s utopian internationalism. Rather than detracting from the book, these reflections add depth and clarity to the author’s broader argument.

Overall, this is a book well worth reading. Accessible and engaging, it is written not only for readers already familiar with these figures but also for those encountering them for the first time. Though the work contains few explicit references to faith, it ultimately echoes the insight famously articulated by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn: that many of society’s greatest tragedies stem from men forgetting God.

Above all, the book reminds us that history is shaped by individuals—flawed and fallen human beings who nevertheless possess the conviction and determination to influence the course of the world, for good or for evil.

Review Written by C. A. Gerber

March 14th, 2026

Review of Live Not By Lies

Book Author: Rod Dreher

tags: culture, Russian 

It can’t happen here; it can’t happen now — or can it? In Live Not by Lies, cultural commentator Rod Dreher answers the age-old question of how we should act in the face of falsehoods, and how we should respond to the increase of totalitarianism in our culture. Elucidating, firstly, how totalitarianism in any of its forms can take root in society, Dreher argues that while Eastern culture was threatened and devastated by an Orwellian totalitarianism that controlled everything, including the thoughts and words of its citizens, we, living in the modern Western hemisphere, are in danger not of an Orwellian system, but a Huxleyan one.

Drawing heavily on the writings of dissidents Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and Vaclav Benda, as well as information received through extensive interviews with survivors, or children of survivors, of the Communist regimes, Dreher recounts the stories of courageous individuals who “lived not by lies.”

Arguing that “the ideal subject of a totalitarian state is someone who has learned to love Big Brother,” Dreher shows how the loss of belief in a transcendent moral order left the culture of Eastern Europe susceptible to a communist takeover, and how, more terrifyingly, the loss of this transcendent order in the West, where the very ideal of moral transcendence was founded, is leaving us open and vulnerable to the soft totalitarianism of Huxley’s Brave New World. Indeed, communism answered, and still answers, “an essentially religious longing,” which is why Dreher argues that we must understand that we are fighting not against a rival economic system, or even a political one, but rather against a completely different and uncompromising religion. This soft totalitarianism demands loyalty in every aspect of life; it demands conformity to all its dogmatic teachings; and it demands, above all, the surrender of Truth. For it, “there is no such thing as objective truth — there is only power.”

The author devotes several chapters to examples of how soft totalitarianism has become the norm in our own culture. At times, this can become overly speculative; his warnings about the PATRIOT Act — though he doesn’t mention it by name, he clearly implies it — as conducive to a totalitarian society, and his dismissal of the state as a vehicle of security maintenance, feel overly influenced by libertarian extravagance. Cultural pressures, social media outrage, and corporate conformity are real phenomena, but Dreher occasionally presents them as more unified and monolithic than they actually are. His examples are persuasive in principle but, at times, exaggerated in scope.

Dreher also proposes a solution to the hard times that we are sure to face. If the thesis were only about the fact that we, as Westerners, are in trouble, and that the totalitarianism of the previous century is rising — indeed, that it has even risen in our midst in a new and deadly form — it would be a book ending in despair. Yet through the examples of brave dissidents and Christians from the past, we too can learn how to live the truth in a culture of lies. Using quotes from Romanian pastor Richard Wurmbrand, and the stories of incarceration from multiple Christians, the author shows that suffering is not necessarily a bad thing; indeed, it can bring the community together like never before. As a reader, it was highly appreciated that Dreher did not simply make these points as statements to be accepted at face value, but rather interviewed dozens of men and women who possessed firsthand experience. This lends a level of credibility to this book that is simply not present in other political manifestos.

Central to Dreher’s argument is the concept articulated by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn in his famous essay Live Not by Lies: the refusal to participate in falsehood. Totalitarian systems survive not merely because of the power of the state, but because millions of ordinary people repeat, affirm, and publicly comply with things they know to be untrue. The lie becomes truth, and the truth becomes unknowable. “Let the lie come into the world,” is the rallying cry. “Let it even triumph…,” but, Solzhenitsyn concludes, “not through me.”

A must read.

Review Written by C. A. Gerber

March 12th, 2026

Review of The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression

Book Author: Amity Shlaes

tags: history 

It is about time that a challenge to the prevailing narrative of the Great Depression is offered. Historian Amity Shlaes has offered it. With timeless advice for future generations, economic historian Shlaes has given us a view of the Great Depression that sees it not as an inevitable plunge caused by the policies of Coolidge and Hoover, but rather as a fluctuating crisis made worse by the progressive policies, heavily influenced by Stalin’s Soviet experiment, of the New Deal.

Telling the story of the Depression through the eyes of now-forgotten individuals, including industrialist Wendell Willkie and the Brooklyn poultry merchants of the Schechter family, whose battle with New Deal regulators would eventually reach the Supreme Court, Shlaes argues that these were truly “the forgotten men” of the Great Depression.

Supposing A sees a conflict caused by X which directly affects B, posits the author, in a rephrasing of the analogy proposed by economist William Graham Sumner. Then suppose A offers a solution to the problem: he (A), and a third party, C, will give up some of their resources (in FDR’s case, this meant increased regulation, governmental intervention, tax hikes, and so forth) for the benefit of B. The problem is, of course, that C was never asked to participate. He was never given the choice. He was drafted for the cause of “social justice” to benefit B, while A enjoyed the moral satisfaction of solving the problem. In this case, it is not B, the person who was helped by the policies of the Roosevelt administration, who was most affected; rather, C bears the brunt of the problem. The initiative proposed by A can be termed a success if the results of B’s condition alone are studied; yet we cannot forget, argues Shlaes, that C also was affected, and, to a very high degree, the effects were negative.

In an economically sound narrative highlighting the real experiences of everyday people who were prosecuted by the Roosevelt administration, or forced into conditions of economic distress directly as a result of Roosevelt’s expanding regulatory infrastructure, both through programs such as the Tennessee Valley Authority and through the industrial codes of the National Recovery Administration, Shlaes seeks to restore the voice of those who paid the hidden price of reform. Among those was Andrew Mellon, the former Secretary of the Treasury who, during the early years of the Depression, became a convenient symbol of everything the Roosevelt administration wished to condemn.

Highlighting also the backstory of those who helped craft the policies of the New Deal, including the socialist sympathizer “Rex” Tugwell, Columbia’s progressive Raymond Moley, and the Harvard Law professor and future Supreme Court justice Felix Frankfurter, Shlaes shows the parallels between the socialization of the Soviet Union, the surge of American and international sympathy for the communist regime, and the policies of progressive reformers of the 1930s. Though they by no means sought to duplicate the policies of the USSR, they nonetheless were influenced by the spirit of centralized planning that drove it.

Answering also the critics of the right who allege that Herbert Hoover, had he been elected to a second term, would have rejected wholesale the efforts of Roosevelt’s team, Shlaes shows the remarkable similarities between the administrative beliefs of Hoover and those of Roosevelt. Indeed, she argues that both failed in a spectacular way during this period. Shlaes does not deny that the economic mobilization of the Second World War finally brought the Depression to its end, nor does she refuse Franklin Roosevelt his due credit for leading the nation through that conflict. Yet she raises a more troubling question. The issue, she suggests, is not merely whether the war helped end the Depression, but why such an extraordinary event was required to do so. If the New Deal had truly restored the vitality of the American economy, why did the nation still struggle with stagnation, unemployment, and uncertainty nearly a decade after Roosevelt first took office?

The problem is, as always, that big government creates big problems.

Review Written by C. A. Gerber

March 9th, 2026

Review of The Death of Trotsky

Book Author: Josh Ireland

tags: history, Russian 

Not only does a fight exist in our world between good and evil; a fight also exists between evil men and men who are even more evil. This book is the story of one such conflict. In The Death of Trotsky, author Josh Ireland showcases one of the most consequential fights in recent history. Each side claimed that progress was on its side; each side claimed to fight for the working man, for the proletariat, for the oppressed; and each claimed that the other was an enemy of progress, an enemy of the proletariat and of society itself.

In an exhilarating ride, Ireland lives up to the description of his book. It does, indeed, rival the works of Erik Larson and Ben Macintyre. Starting with the critical months following the death of the brutal Vladimir Lenin, Ireland narrates the struggle for control of the Soviet legislature and for control of the communist movement as a whole. Two men, both of whom had fought side by side during the bloody months of 1917, both of whom were fundamental pieces of the first successful Marxist revolution in world history, and both of whom claimed themselves, and not the other, to be the logical and only safe choice to succeed the deified Lenin.

Ultimately, the brutal Joseph Stalin would emerge the victor, leading to the exile and eventual assassination of his equally brutal opponent, Leon Trotsky. Ireland excels in telling the stories not only of these two men, but also of the others who were both the victors and the victims of the revolution that these two men had brought into being. The book follows the story of the Spaniard Ramon Mercader and his mother, who had fought alongside Soviet sympathizers in the Spanish Civil War and were then recruited by the NKVD to take part in the hunt for and death of the greatest foe to Stalin’s consolidation of power. It is a tale full of deceit, of double lives, of tragic ends; a tale of darkness and the worst kind of evil that can fill the human heart.

The book also follows the story of Marc “Etienne” Zborowski, who quickly rose through the ranks of Trotskyists in Paris, becoming the heir apparent following the death of Trotsky’s only surviving son, Lev (under suspicious circumstances), though he was on Stalin’s payroll. Finally, it follows the story of Leon Trotsky himself: exiled, knowing that Stalin’s agents would eventually catch up to him, yet unrepentant, perpetually convinced that he was the true force of revolution, the true arm of progress.

The book deals with some heavy topics. It is a book without hope, without redemption, without a theme other than despair, but it is a vital read to understand the heart of darkness, as Conrad termed it. Ireland does not conceal the evil behind either Stalin and his NKVD agents or the perversion of Trotsky and his Mexican allies Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo. The book spends considerable time discussing the critical years of Stalin’s purge, when everyone who had even been remotely connected to Trotsky was disposed of, and all those who had too clean a record—as in, they had no known connections to Trotsky—also faced the pistol for “security concerns.”

From Moscow to Paris, from Norway to the outskirts of Mexico City, Leon Trotsky was a hunted man, and he knew it. Yet on that warm day in 1940, it would be the choices of one man, and one man alone, that would determine the destiny of this communist leader. This is the story of choices, both good and bad. It is the story of ideas, bad and worse. It is the story of a murder: the murderer and the murdered.

Though the outcome of the story was certain from the beginning—the title is, of course, an obvious spoiler—this book was nonetheless spellbinding. The narrative was easy to follow, though, at times, the names were not; it was hard to keep track of all the communists and Trotskyists in the who’s who of double agents. It was easy to sympathize with the exiled Trotsky. It was also hard to determine the author’s personal political agenda; his sympathy for Trotsky does not altogether convince me that he is a Trotskyist, though he certainly does not spare additional verbiage regarding Stalin.

The ideological framework and differences of the two men are also hard to determine. At root, however, I think this is not as much the fault of the author as it is the fact that the two revolutionaries were extraordinarily close to each other in purpose and in outlook: an atheistic Marxist belief in Hegelian progress. This leads me to the conclusion that neither Stalin nor Trotsky was a friend of the common man; both were, ultimately, concerned only with their will to power, as Hitler in Germany, Tito in Yugoslavia, Mussolini in Italy, and Mao in China all were.

And it was this will for power that would lead to the demise of Leon Trotsky, abandoned by nearly all; killed in the most merciless way imaginable, alone, defenseless, long since exiled from his native land, in a Mexico City house, betrayed by one of his few remaining allies.

Review Written by C. A. Gerber

March 8th, 2026

Review of 1917: Lenin, Wilson, and the Birth of the New World Disorder

Book Author: Arthur Herman

tags: history, Russian, leadership 

Idealism is not necessarily a virtue, for both tyrants and heroes have been and are idealists. In 1917, two men, different in many ways but similar in one underlying theme, were about to be catapulted to the forefront of the world. Their choices would be choices that would shape the world for the next century.

Author Arthur Herman argues that both Woodrow Wilson, the President of the United States, and Vladimir Lenin, the revolutionary Marxist who would soon be deified as the founder of the Soviet Union, were not only alike in their fervent belief that history could be bent toward a grand design, but also in their confidence that they themselves understood that design. From a distinctly Hegelian lens, one which saw progress as an inevitable force that would lead to harmony, both believed that they could use government, or, in a Bismarckian sense, “the state,” to further their ends. The state was a means to an end for both men, and as a means it was applied in every possible way.

1917 explores how the visions of these two men collided in a colossal way during the terminus of the Great War. Wilson entered the war reluctantly, despite the clamor from those in the Republican Party, such as Theodore Roosevelt, who urged him to stand with their European allies from the start. Yet when he entered, he applied his vision of liberal democracy and an international order to every aspect of the conflict. It would be the mission of the United States Expeditionary Force, under the talented command of “Black Jack” Pershing, to secure a peace, but it would be, Wilson urged, a peace without victory.

Herman argues that that is exactly what he got.

On the other hand was the Russian exile living in Switzerland, the avowed Marxist Vladimir Lenin. Unlike today’s perception of Lenin as a fundamentally different man from his successor, Joseph Stalin, Herman points out that it was Lenin, and not Stalin, who was in command of the purges following the Bolsheviks’ triumph in the Revolution of ’17. It was Lenin, though this applied as well to Stalin or to Stalin’s nemesis Trotsky, who was the brutal warlord who murdered his political opponents, no matter their innocence. Yet Lenin too was an idealist, and Lenin also was willing to use the state to achieve progress. While Wilson viewed progress as that which could be achieved by peaceful coexistence, Lenin saw it in starkly different terms. Well might Mao Zedong’s motto, “political power grows out of the barrel of a gun,” have served as the unofficial motto of Vladimir Lenin’s revolution. Where Woodrow Wilson spoke the language of diplomacy, congresses, and international law, Lenin spoke the language of force, class war, and revolutionary necessity. Yet both men believed they were accelerating the march of history. The difference lay not in their certainty, but in the methods which they believed history required.

The irony is that Lenin need not have succeeded. The Soviet Union was an experiment, and like all experiments, was not bound to succeed. By its very nature, communism, argues Herman, eats its own creation, and indeed, following the stories of the leaders of the Revolution, such as Trotsky, such a proposition is historically evident as well. Rather than being bound to an inevitable victory of the proletariat, as Lenin firmly believed, the Russian Revolution nearly ended in failure many times. Alexander Kerensky and the fragile Provisional Government might well have crushed the Bolshevik movement had events taken only a slightly different course. The Whites, under the command of Alexander Denikin, could have stood up to Lenin had not inner turmoil and distrust between Denikin and Kerensky bloomed. Indeed, had Woodrow Wilson himself not intervened on behalf of the Bolsheviks, it is likely that the experiment in communism would have ended not in 1991 with the quiet dissolution of the Soviet Union, but in 1919 amid the smoke and confusion of the Russian Civil War. Ironically, it was the Hegelian idealism of Wilson that preserved the Soviet Union from destruction.

Wilson himself would fail, his idealism running aground when the Republican Senate, under the leadership of Henry Cabot Lodge, blocked Wilson’s pet project, the League of Nations. It was idealism that prevented Wilson from acceding to the demands made by the Republican Congress. It was idealism that made Wilson see the entire conflict over the League as a conflict for the future of humanity rather than an opportunity for compromise, which could have led to a fundamentally better League, one backed by both parties. It was idealism that drove Wilson mad with fury and would lead to several massive strokes that would leave him incapacitated for the remainder of his term and that would sink all hopes of running for a third term in 1920.

In clear prose, Herman successfully defends his central thesis: that the idealism of both Wilson and Lenin led to the disorder of the next century. The naivety of Wilson’s Fourteen Points and his belief that World War I was “the war to end all wars” would lead to the appeasement of Nazi Germany. The desperate, Machiavellian, yet at heart idealistic policies of Vladimir Lenin would lead to the deaths not only of Russians during the fifty-plus years of Soviet rule, but would also, albeit indirectly, cause the surge of bloody communist revolutions across the globe, from Mao’s China, where seventy million people died, to Pol Pot’s Cambodia and Kim’s North Korea. Although Herman makes no attempt to disguise his contempt for Wilson, and his hatred of Lenin, from beginning to end, the facts are neatly ordered, the thesis is well defended, and the writing is masterfully articulated.

Review Written by C. A. Gerber

March 8th, 2026

Review of A Time to Betray

Book Author: Reza Kahlili

tags: memoir, history, Middle East 

There is a time for all things under heaven, including, as it turns out, A Time to Betray. Written by an Iranian student who was recruited into the Central Intelligence Agency to gather information on the activities of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, Reza Kahlili — the author uses a pen name to protect his identity — discusses the issues at the heart of the human soul: the urge to remain loyal to one’s own country, to protect innocent family members, yet the revulsion produced in the soul in the face of sheer evil.

Having read numerous works of fiction on the Iranian Revolution, CIA activities in the region, and the apocalyptic worldview that drives the Muslim regime, I was quite intrigued when I first learned of the author and the book’s thesis.

Certainly, the author’s perspective is very interesting. He approaches the IRGC from a very westernized perspective (he spent several years at UC Berkeley), and the reader is left constantly guessing what his current religious convictions are. He is constantly praying to “God,” but he gives no hint as to which god that is. At one point it becomes very clear that he has left Islam, or at least that he has left radical Islam. There are, unfortunately, no redemptive virtues in the narrator’s life that give any indication of a conversion to Christianity; yet the role of Providence remains an irreducible part of the narrator’s life story, as he comes to terms with good and evil in his own homeland and is faced with unthinkable choices.

The narrative is interesting from both a cultural and psychological perspective, and learning about what truly goes on in the echelons of power in Tehran is fascinating. Further, the author explains the mindset of the radical, apocalyptic jihadists and does not sugarcoat it. Sadly, it does not read like a novel or a spy book, so if that is what you are expecting, you will be disappointed. The author is not a writer by training; English is not his native tongue, and it is immediately obvious. Although the style can at times become annoying, and the constant shifts in time — avoiding nearly all chronological order or sense of location — distract the reader from the core of the matter, this remains an essential read for understanding both the mindset of those who were in power until recently and the mindset of those who have been persecuted by this deadly regime for well-nigh half a century.

Truth is stranger than fiction.

Review Written by C. A. Gerber

March 7th, 2026

Review of The Splendid and the Vile

Book Author: Erik Larson

tags: history, leadership 

Erik Larson is a pleasure to read. This is not the big, multi-volume, extremely interesting but also somewhat dry biography of Churchill by Martin Gilbert. Rather, it is a work of historical narrative told through the eyes of Churchill and those closest to him, and it reads like a thriller. Beginning on the day of Churchill’s ascent to the premiership following the resignation of appeaser Neville Chamberlain, The Splendid and the Vile moves through the critical days after the fall of France, the evacuation of Dunkirk, and the crucial decision to sink the French naval fleet, taken by Churchill out of fear that it would be handed over to Germany by Vichy France. The Splendid and the Vile will, no doubt, remain a portrayal of the Blitz that lingers in dining rooms and on bookshelves as a showpiece for years to come. It is a fundamentally necessary read, but, unlike many other necessary works, it is a book that will hook the reader from start to finish. Larson weaves together stories and inner plots that support his central thesis, sometimes working backward from a set point of “meeting” to consider the events leading up to it. He does take some historical liberties that a more cautious historian might avoid; that said, nothing in the narrative is explicitly inaccurate. The theme, the setting, and the thoughts, motives, and personalities of the principals all come into play and stand at the forefront of this story of prolonged conflict.

The book tells the stories of everyday Londoners during the weeks, months, and years of the Blitz. From the tragic suicide of Virginia Woolf to the bombing of the Café de Paris, Larson brings a level of human interest rarely seen in biographies of public figures. There is also, of course, Churchill’s vital personality: his often brutal sense of humor, his occasional childlike innocence, and at other times his vengeful distrust. Larson explores his relationship with the intrigue-filled Max Aitken, Lord Beaverbrook, who, despite resigning fourteen times, always seemed to remain in Churchill’s cabinet and who almost single-handedly increased Britain’s wartime aircraft production, arguably saving the nation from the fate chosen for so many other European states: becoming a vassal of Nazi Germany. Then there was “the Prof,” Frederick Lindemann, the eccentric Jewish physicist whose inventions drove most men to distraction but whose remarkably affable relationship with Churchill remains one of the book’s curiosities. Finally, there is the Prime Minister’s family: the unhappy couple, Randolph Churchill and Pamela Harriman—Randolph a hopeless drunk and womanizer, Pamela a lonely socialite navigating a marriage that had curdled almost as soon as it began, finding companionship and influence in the drawing rooms and bedrooms of powerful men such as W. Averell Harriman, FDR’s envoy to London. Mary Churchill, all of eighteen, was unsure where her future lay but certain of her love for her father, while Clementine Churchill, despite the sexual deviance common among the upper aristocracy, remained remarkably faithful to her devoted husband Winston and restrained him from some of his greatest mistakes.

It is also, fundamentally, a story of alliances. Larson traces Churchill’s efforts to persuade the United States to pass the Lend-Lease bill, as well as the events leading to the attack on Pearl Harbor, after which Churchill believed the world had been saved. The book also considers alliances within the Third Reich: between the Führer and his air-power genius, the art thief yet devoted husband Hermann Göring; Joseph Goebbels, the propaganda minister so devoted to his Führer that he would later poison himself, his wife, and their six children; and Rudolf Hess, the unstable deputy who believed he had received a vision instructing him to orchestrate a peace with Britain.

Last but not least, it is a story of bravery: from the rhetorical power of Winston Churchill (“I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat”), to the bomber crews, and to the British people themselves, determined to fight on the beaches and on the landing grounds, in the air and on the sea. Larson captures a nation standing on the brink and refusing to step back, and in doing so reminds the reader why those months were not only pivotal for the future of Britain but foundational for the future of civilization.

Review Written by C. A. Gerber

March 7th, 2026