RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://tomklingenstein.com/radical-evil-and-the-totalitarian-temptation/

Every time conservatives win elections and begin to govern effectively, or simply push back against authoritarian manifestations of wokeness, the loudest voices on the Left evoke the specter of fascism. One side effect of this is that books like George Orwell’s 1984 or Hannah Arendt’s The Origins of Totalitarianism momentarily become best sellers again. It is simply assumed that both authors took aim at “fascism” broadly define and never saw any enemies on the Left. These subtle books, which belong to neither the Left nor the Right but to the larger cause of liberty and human dignity, are thus instrumentalized for authoritarian “anti-fascist” purposes. 

In no way is this a new phenomenon. Walter Cronkite, the longtime CBS news anchor and “the most trusted man in America” in a bygone age, wrote an introduction to an earlier edition of 1984 in which he suggested that the totalitarian nightmare sketched in that powerful and profound book eerily anticipated…Richard Nixon and Watergate. Last year, Anne Applebaum, who once wrote with erudition and gusto about the crimes of Communism, penned an introduction to a new paperback edition of The Origins of Totalitarianism in which she did not mention Communism once and identified Vladimir Putin’s authoritarian rule in Russia with full-scale totalitarianism. Examples of the systematic abuse of these anti-totalitarian classics could be multiplied. 

However, Arendt herself was a political thinker very difficult to pigeonhole. She was a German Jew who despised National Socialism, yet she defended her teacher (and sometime lover) Martin Heidegger against the charge that his apologetics for the same had discredited him philosophically. She worked indefatigably to aid Jewish refugees and displaced persons both before and after the Second World War, yet she was far from a wholehearted Zionist. She honorably resisted the totalitarian temptation in its Communist form, but had an unreasonable distrust of ex-Communists such as Whittaker Chambers who had borne heroic witness to Communism’s crimes. 

Arendt was hardly a conservative, but she had no interest in the kind of shallow liberalism that places naïve confidence in an ideology of Progress; in fact, she compellingly argued that “Progress” and “Doom” were two sides of the same pernicious coin.

The first investigation into why a ring of senior Washington officials went rogue to derail the election and the presidency of Donald Trump. There was nothing normal about the 2016 presidential election, not when senior U.S. officials were turning the surveillance powers of the federal government—designed to stop terrorist attacks—against the Republican presidential team. These were the ruthless tactics of a Soviet-style police state, not a democratic republic. The Red Thread asks the simple question: Why? What is it that motivated these anti-Trump conspirators from inside and around the Obama administration and Clinton networks to depart so drastically from “politics as usual” to participate in a seditious effort to overturn an election? Finding clues in an array of sources, Diana West uses her trademark investigative skills, honed in her dazzling work, American Betrayal, to construct a fascinating series of ideological profiles of well-known but little understood anti-Trump actors, from James Comey to Christopher Steele to Nellie Ohr, and the rest of the Fusion GPS team; from John Brennan to the numerous Clintonistas still patrolling the Washington Swamp after all these years, and more. Once, we knew these officials by august titles and reputation; after The Red Thread, readers will recognize their multi-generational and inter-connecting communist and socialist pedigrees, and see them for what they really are: foot-soldiers of the Left, deployed to take down America’s first “America First” and most anti-Communist president. If we just give it a pull, the “red thread” is very long and very deep.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm-plus/at-home-with-the-holocaust/

On March 11, 2025, Rutgers University Press released At Home with the Holocaust: Postmemory, Domestic Space, and Second-Generation Holocaust Narratives by Lucas F. W. Wilson, PhD. At Home is 188 pages long, inclusive of an index, end notes, and a bibliography. The book’s goal is to analyze how children and grandchildren of Holocaust survivors are traumatized by their parents’ and grandparents’ experiences. The book focuses on how homes – that is, houses and geographic locations – can transmit trauma from one generation to the next.

In an online biography, author Wilson says, “I am the Justice, Equity, and Transformation Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Calgary.” On a University of Calgary page, Wilson follows his name with “Pronouns: he/him/his.” In an interview, Wilson says, “My work has largely centered on the Holocaust, but given the rise in anti-queer and anti-trans violence, public policy, and legislation, I redirected my attention on a main catalyst of homophobia and transphobia today: white Christian nationalism …  Both the Holocaust and conversion therapy are inextricably connected to Christianity … The Christian scriptures and Christian theology laid the seedbed for the Holocaust … Christianity has so easily lent itself to such hatred.” Christians have “genocidal intentions” toward GLBT people, Jews, and “Indigenous folks in North America.”

Wilson, though young, is an exceptionally successful scholar, enjoying a degree of financial support and accolades that most scholars can only dream of. “I have received several fellowships and awards for my work.” An incomplete list of his honors: The Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi’s Dissertation Fellowship; a European Holocaust Research Infrastructure Fellowship; The Rabbi Ferdinand Isserman Memorial Fellowship from the American Jewish Archives; a Regent Scholarship, two Edwin L. Stockton, Jr., Graduate Scholarships from Sigma Tau Delta International English Honor Society, an Auschwitz Jewish Center Fellowship, and a Zaglembier Society Scholarship awarded by The Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center for Holocaust Studies.

At Home with the Holocaust has received high praise. Scholar and author Victoria Aarons says that the book “makes a vital contribution to the research on second and third-generation Holocaust descendants with the Holocaust meets the needs of a reader happily immersed and unquestioningly invested in academic trends in writing styles, thought processes, ideology, and ethics. I am not that reader. This book exemplifies serious problems in contemporary academia, as I will detail in the review, below. First, a word on why I care about this topic.

As soon as I saw the Rutgers University Press ad for this new book, I was eager to read it. I have been swimming in the water of post-World-War-Two trauma for my entire life. I’m a baby boomer, a drop in the post-World-War-II demographic surge. I didn’t give it much thought in my childhood, but I was surrounded by post-war trauma.

This is the untold story of the rediscovery of the ancient City of David in Jerusalem and the powerful evidence that proves the Jewish people’s historical and indigenous connection to the Holy Land.

Since the founding of Israel in 1948, the Jewish people have faced nine wars against multiple enemies. Yet, beyond the physical conflicts, a deeper ideological battle has been waged against Israel and the Jewish people. This war, crafted by certain Arab leaders and echoed by international organizations like the United Nations, seeks to erase the Jewish people’s ancestral ties to the land, casting them as outsiders, imposters, and “settlers.”

One thing, however, stands in the way of the denialists: the 3,800-year history of the City of David, a site lying just south of the Old City. Archeologists at the site are unearthing evidence that proves the Jewish people’s origin story in the land for over three millennia. Every shovel of dirt reveals that while others may claim to be indigenous to Jerusalem, the Jewish people are, in fact, more indigenous to the Land of Israel than perhaps any other group living anywhere in the world.

This is the timely story of those who transformed City of David from a neglected hilltop village into one of the most important archeological heritage sites in the world, while facing powerful global institutions and terror groups that would do almost anything to keep this truth hidden. Highly relevant to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, this book foreshadows the events and historical denialism that unfolded with Hamas’s attack on Israel on October 7, 2023.

A revelatory investigation into the rise and fall of the ‘woke’ movement and how we can prevent it from happening again.

It is no secret that we are in the midst of a cultural revolution. Activists in the ‘woke’ movement have claimed to be on the right side of history, and yet their approach has been intolerant, intemperate and, above all, illiberal. Having dominated the western world for the past fifteen years, there are clear signs the woke are now losing their power. The re-election of Donald Trump, the scaling back of DEI initiatives, and a growing awareness of the threats to women’s sex-based rights has stirred a counter-revolution. But is this truly the end of woke? Or have the culture wars merely evolved?

In The End of Woke, Doyle skilfully examines the mechanisms underlying the zealous extremes on both the left and the right. He shows that, in a desperate power struggle to re-assert liberal values, some leaders of the anti-woke movement have found themselves adopting a different kind of authoritarian approach – one which also promotes censorship and erodes our freedoms.

Doyle argues that although authoritarianism is common to all political tribes, we must resist its pernicious influence wherever it emerges. After all, replacing one form of tyranny with another will not end the culture wars. But liberalism – true liberalism – might just see the end of woke for good.

Amid the ashes of World War I, a penniless Sender Leib Brilliant and his wife, Anna, moved their young family from Kalisz, Poland, to a new beginning in Berlin. With time and hard work, he achieved great financial success in his adopted city. Life was good–until the looming specter of fascism cast a dark shadow on their future and prompted an agonizing choice: remain in Germany and trust that their status and resources would see them through, or follow Sender Lieb’s brother, Joseph, into an uncertain future in America.

A Brilliant Decision is the poignant and inspiring true story of Sender Lieb’s journey after his and Anna’s fateful- and ultimately lifesaving- resolution to migrate with their family from Germany to New York City. Tragically, several close relatives who had remained in Europe were not as fortunate when Hitler’s Third Reich marched across the continent, leaving horror and devastation in its wake. Sender Leib’s courageous choice in 1934 echoes through the lives of his descendants, who owe everything to that one Brilliant Decision.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/war-men-and-the-soul-of-the-west/

“War – what is it good for? Absolutely nothin’,” sang The Temptations. “War is not the answer,” declares the familiar bumper sticker.

But that depends on what the question is, doesn’t it? If the question is, how do you stop an imperialistic movement from bringing the whole continent of Europe under its totalitarian sway, then war is indeed a pretty valid answer. If your citizens are being relentlessly bombarded with rockets and terror attacks from an enemy with whom you have tried every conceivable diplomatic solution for literally decades, and their very raison d’etre, as explicitly noted in their charter, is to eradicate your people and erase your country from the map – I’m looking at you, Hamas – then war begins to sound like the best and only answer.

War is an ugly thing, but it’s not the ugliest of things, as John Stuart Mill said. Indeed, in his  latest book A Rage to Conquer: Twelve Battles That Changed the Course of Western History, Michael Walsh makes a compelling case for the centrality of war in shaping the cultural, political, and spiritual contours of the West. He goes beyond traditional military history to weave literary, cultural, and philosophical threads into a narrative marked by his signature erudition, storytelling passion, and deep reverence for the martial spirit (I reviewed it here).

Journalist, novelist, political pundit, and screenwriter Walsh is the author of, among his 17 or 18 books, two essential ones on cultural Marxism which I also have reviewed – The Devil’s Pleasure Palace and The Fiery Angel. The provocative Walsh has also appeared a couple of times on my podcast at the Horowitz Freedom Center, The Right Take with Mark Tapson (listen here and here).

I’m honored to say Michael Walsh has been a friend for many years. He is a brilliant writer with the most wide-ranging intellect and interests of probably anyone I know. I sat down with him recently to talk about A Rage to Conquer and about history, warfare, masculinity, and current events.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm-plus/book-and-dagger-how-scholars-and-librarians-became-the-unlikely-spies-of-world-war-ii/

Ecco, a subdivision of Harper Collins, released Book and Dagger: How Scholars and Librarians Became the Unlikely Spies of World War II by Elyse Graham on September 24, 2024. The book has 376 pages, inclusive of footnotes, endnotes, and an index. It is not illustrated. Graham received her PhD from Yale; she currently teaches English at Stony Brook.

The Washington Post raved about Book and Dagger. “Graham’s account is well-researched and scrupulously footnoted, but she also writes with a pulpy panache that turns the book into a well-paced thriller.” The Wall Street Journal praised “an almost breathless sense of wartime romance and drama. It makes for entertaining, atmospheric reading.” Publisher’s Weekly enjoyed “Graham’s exuberant prose … a colorful salute to some of WWII’s more bookish heroes.”

I liked this book, but did not love it. I would, though, recommend it to anyone intrigued by the title. More on my reaction to the book, below, after a somewhat choppy summary of a somewhat choppy book.

In the summer of 1941, President Roosevelt told his former Columbia classmate and World War I military hero William J. Donovan that “We have no intelligence service.” Other nations had established spy agencies with centuries of continuous experience. In 1929, Secretary of State Henry Stimson had closed the Cable and Telegraph Section, a spy service created during World War I, declaring, “Gentlemen do not read each other’s mail.” In 1941, World War II loomed. America needed nationally coordinated intelligence gathering. Donovan left his law practice to become the first director of a new agency, the Office of Strategic Services or OSS. It would eventually become the CIA. A statue of Donovan stands in the lobby of the CIA headquarters building in Langley, Virginia.