When did Americans start flying flags on town greens? According to Adam Goodheart in his widely (and justly) praised new history, 1861: The Civil War Awakening, the custom erupted in December 1860.
Mitt Romney often joked during the primaries: “Being a conservative Republican in Massachusetts is a bit like being a cattle rancher at a vegetarian convention.” Try that joke the other way around, and it doesn’t work, does it?
My review of George Eliot’s Scenes of Clerical Life triggered a lively discussion over in the Corner. So I am excited to see what might ensue from another posting on Eliot, this time on her first full length novel, Adam Bede.
I blame Christopher Caldwell, I really do. A few years ago, Caldwell dropped a bunker-buster of a negative review on Robert Penn Warren’s All the King’s Men.