Editor’s note: American Spectator writer Aram Bakshian Jr. died on Sept. 14. He contributed to the magazine for nearly 50 years. Author’s note: Since the Great American Saloon Series has run dry due to the milksop nature of most Alternative…
All too many hotel bars are little more than shoddy afterthoughts, soulless spaces where hotel guests, and almost no one else, may grab a quick drink or two before setting off for — or after returning from — somewhere more…
The Greatest Comeback: How Richard Nixon Rose From Defeat to Create the New MajorityBy Patrick J. Buchanan(Crown Forum, 392 pages, $28) To begin at the beginning, I happen to believe that Pat Buchanan is one of the ablest, most eloquent…
Long before there was a Four Seasons or a Mayflower or a Hay Adams, Washington, D.C. had only one grand hotel: the Willard. The prime spot it now occupies on Pennsylvania Avenue has housed one sort of caravanserai or another…
The Founders at Home: The Building of America, 1735-1817By Myron Magnet(Norton, 472 pages, $35) Myron Magnet, editor-at-large of City Journal, set himself no small task in writing his latest book. The Founders at Home is an intertwined series of biographies that,…
Mastering the Art of Soviet Cooking: A Memoir of Food and LongingBy Anya Von Bremzen(Crown, 338 pages, $26) One of the most popular novelistic forms is the sweeping, multi-generational family saga that encompasses great events as they are seen through…
Franco’s Crypt: Spanish Culture and Memory Since 1936By Jeremy Treglown(Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 320 pages, $30) When Generalissimo Francisco Franco finally died at the age of 82 after ruling Spain with an iron hand for 36 years, a Barcelona wag…
Historians will record that the 1993 Clinton inauguration actually began the year before in early November. Scarcely had the votes been counted when lobbyists, pitchmen, political groupies, and Democratic hopefuls began to flood Washington, D.C. Suddenly the capital’s fashionable hotel…
Mismatch: How Affirmative Action Hurts Students It’s Intended to Help, and Why Universities Won’t Admit It By Richard H. Sanders and Stuart Taylor, Jr. (Basic Books, 347 pages, $28.99) IF GEORGE WILL WERE WITH US TODAY, he’d probably coin the…
On Dupont Circle: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt and the Progressives Who Shaped Our World By James Srodes (Counterpoint Press, 325 pages, $25) HISTORY HAS ITS OWN ADDRESS BOOK. Over the centuries many major events and movements have been named after…