Vodka Politics: Alcohol, Autocracy, and the Secret History of the Russian State By Mark Lawrence Schrad (Oxford, 512 pages, $35)…

The Great Debate: Edmund Burke, Thomas Paine, and the Birth of Right and LeftBy Yuval Levin(Basic, 296 pages, $27.99) [[{“type”:”media”,”view_mode”:”media_large”,”fid”:”94162″,”attributes”:{“alt”:””,”class”:”media-image”,”height”:”480″,”style”:”float: right;”,”typeof”:”foaf:Image”,”width”:”308″}}]]…

ANY CONSERVATIVE who expends energy denouncing relativism is wasting his time fighting the last war. Relativism was quite a force…

The following things are not news: Craven horse-trading in the New York state legislature, that State Sen. Pedro Espada plays…

Ross Douthat doesn’t know it, but his column this morning was written in 1772. Justus Moser took a harder line…