This history of the Church of Latter-day Saints in Germany during Hitler’s murderous reign should be taken as yet another warning of how basic goodness—in this case religious faith—can be cruelly bent when it accommodates itself to... Read More

The South’s storied charm and civility are overshadowed by more hostile tendencies in this account of the role the region played in the Vietnam War. Joseph A. Fry, who has written extensively about the eleven states of the former... Read More

Dr. Samuel Johnson, the famed British lexicographer and essayist, was at his acerbic best when he described those in Britain’s American colonies who bemoaned taxation without representation: “How is it that we hear the loudest yelps... Read More

Most of the authors who wrote any of the 15,000+ Lincoln books in existence would know immediately the full and proper name of the Billy in the title of this historical novel. He was William Herndon, who was the sixteenth president’s... Read More

The South’s defeat was inevitable when, on a chilly Sunday April 3 morning in 1865, Confederate President Jefferson Davis’s prayers at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Richmond, Virginia, were interrupted when the church sextant... Read More

The dramatic reign (1558-1603) of Queen Elizabeth I, known during her own times as the Virgin Queen, has spawned more than a dozen movies with her being played by the likes of Bette Davis and Cate Blanchett and, in old age, Dame Judi... Read More

In one of Elizabeth Bishop’s poems, which Bill Belleville quotes, she wrote that Florida is “the state that floats in brackish water / held together by mangrove roots.” That sentiment serves to bolster one of his main points: that... Read More

Sam Keith is remembered for chronicling the life in the Alaska wilderness of his friend Dick Proenneke, arguably the world’s most famous recluse. He did it in One Man’s Wilderness, which has sold 400,000 copies since its publication... Read More