Ill Literacy: Books with Benson

Heartland’s Tim Benson is joined by Stanford University’s William Damon to discuss his new book from Templeton Press, A Round of Golf with My Father: The New Psychology of Exploring Your Past to Make Peace with Your Present. They discuss how Damon discovered how the father he never met and was told all his life had died in the Second World War had, in fact, abandoned his mother and started a new life and a new family overseas. Damon also discusses the process of the “life review,” his journey to piece together knowledge of his father’s life, his struggle to make sense of his father’s contradictions, and how the game of golf helped him connect with a man he never knew.

Get the book here: https://templetonpress.org/books/a-round-of-golf-with-my-father/

Show Notes:

Wall Street Journal: William Damon – “Golfing With the Father I Never Knew”

Heartland’s Tim Benson is joined by H.W, Brands, Jack S. Blanton Sr. Chair in History at the University of Texas at Austin to discuss his new book from Doubleday, Our First Civil War: Patriots and Loyalists in the American Revolution. They discuss how Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, and many others came to the conclusion that the only way for the American colonists to retain their traditional British rights and liberties was to extricate themselves from the British Empire. They also discuss why many of their Loyalist neighbors were convinced independence was a dangerous folly, and how they soon found themselves denounced as traitors for not having betrayed the country where they grew up.

Get the book here: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/646498/our-first-civil-war-by-h-w-brands/

Heartland’s Tim Benson is joined by Stanford University Center on Geopolitics and Technology senior advisor Jacob Helberg to discuss his new book, The Wires of War: Technology and the Global Struggle for Power. They discuss the current and potential front- and back-end tech battles with Russia and China and how this tech battle could shape the world’s balance of power for the coming century.

Get the book here: https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Wires-of-War/Jacob-Helberg/9781982144432

Heartland’s Tim Benson is joined by the Alexander Hamilton Institute’s resident fellow Mary Grabar to discuss her new book, Debunking the 1619 Project: Exposing the Plan to Divide America. They discuss how project came to be, the motivation behind it, and what its creators would like to accomplish with it, as well as the potential harm done by teaching it in schools.

Get the book here: https://www.regnery.com/9781684511778/debunking-the-1619-project/

Heartland’s Tim Benson is joined by Peter W. Wood, president of the National Association of Scholars and previous Ill Literacy guest, to discuss his new book, Wrath: America Enraged. They discuss how Americans became some expressively angry, how that anger came to dominate politics, and the differences between “anger” and “wrath,” as well as how the “new anger” differs from older forms of it. They also discuss how citizens can use anger constructively, and nonviolently, to return to ordered liberty and founding principles.

Heartland’s Tim Benson is joined by Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Joseph J. Ellis to discuss his new book, The Cause: The American Revolution and its Discontents, 1773-1783. They discuss how changes in British imperial policy lead to the war, how the war was incorrectly shaped, early on and by both sides, by beliefs about the militia the wariness many colonists felt toward the Continental Army, and the true political legacy of the war itself. They also chat about lesser-known heroes of the period, like John Dickinson, John Jay, Robert Morris, and Nathanael Greene.

Get the book here: https://wwnorton.com/books/9781631498985

Show Notes:

The Guardian: John S. Gardner – “The Cause: a history of the American revolution for our own troubled time”

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/sep/25/the-cause-american-revolution-joseph-ellis-history

New York Times: Richard Stengel – “Two of America’s Leading Historians Look at the Nation’s Founding Once Again — to Understand It in All Its Complexity”

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/21/books/review/the-cause-joseph-j-ellis-power-liberty-gordon-s-wood.html

The Thomas Jefferson Hour: #1462 The Cause with Joseph Ellis (PODCAST)

https://jeffersonhour.com/blog/1462

U.S. National Archives: The Cause: The American Revolution and its Discontents, 1773–1783 (VIDEO)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cjaByAE6y4M

Washington Post: Hugh Hewitt – “This Fourth, recall the revolution of aspirations, contradictions and ongoing dilemmas”

Heartland’s Tim Benson is joined by Andrew Sullivan to discuss his new book, Out On a Limb: Selected Writing, 1989-2021. They discuss Sullivan’s career, whether Barack Obama was a radical, the decline of both the American Left and American Right into illiberalism, trans issues, and the course of gay life in the United States over the last 30 years.

Get the book here: https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Out-on-a-Limb/Andrew-Sullivan/9781501155895

And Check Out Andrew’s Substack: https://andrewsullivan.substack.com/

Show Notes:

The American Conservative: Josh Christenson – “The Rambler”

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/the-rambler/

Book Passage TV: Andrew Sullivan - Out on a Limb | Conversations with Authors (VIDEO)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_5rBdK4eik

The Book Review: Andrew Sullivan on Being “Out On a Limb” (PODCAST)

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/03/books/review/podcast-andrew-sullivan-out-on-a-limb-leila-slimani-country-of-others.html

City Journal: Jonathan Clarke – “Loving the Fight”

https://www.city-journal.org/review-of-out-on-a-limb-by-andrew-sullivan

Crazy Money with Paul Ollinger: Andrew Sullivan Holds Nothing Back (PODCAST)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vL4tYpt_E8

New York Times: David French – “Andrew Sullivan, No One’s Ally, Tells It as He Sees It”

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/08/books/review/out-on-a-limb-andrew-sullivan.html

The Philadelphia Citizen: Andrew Sullivan on illiberalism, critical race theory and his new book, Out On a Limb (VIDEO)

Heartland’s Tim Benson is joined by Caroline E. Janney of the University of Virginia to discuss her new book, Ends of War: The Unfinished Fight of Lee’s Army after Appomattox. They discuss the surrender terms and the legal and societal complications that ensued from them, as well as the practical problems facing Confederate soldiers as they tried to make their way to their homes. They also chat about how understanding the birth of Reconstruction policy and the Lost Cause narrative are only possible if one knows the story of the end of the Army of Northern Virginia.

Get the book here: https://uncpress.org/book/9781469663371/ends-of-war/

Show Notes:

C-SPAN: Paroling General Lee's Army After Appomattox (VIDEO)

https://www.c-span.org/video/?457702-9/paroling-general-lees-army-appomattox

C-SPAN: Disbanding the Remnants of Lee's Army (VIDEO)

https://www.c-span.org/video/?425712-14/disbanding-remnants-lees-army

Washington Post: Caroline E. Janney – “Why we need Confederate monuments”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/made-by-history/wp/2017/07/27/why-we-need-confederate-monuments/

Washington Post: Caroline E. Janney – “The next Lost Cause?”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/07/31/lost-cause-donald-trump/

Washington Post: Melody Barnes & Caroline E. Janney – “In a civil war, accountability must precede healing”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/in-a-civil-war-accountability-must-precede-healing/2021/01/15/8a8004de-5769-11eb-a817-e5e7f8a406d6_story.html

Heartland’s Tim Benson is joined by Robert S. Levine of University of Maryland, College Park to discuss his new book, The Failed Promise: Reconstruction, Frederick Douglass, and the Impeachment of Andrew Johnson. They discuss the relationship between Douglass and Johnson, how many black leaders viewed the Johnson administration with hope at its start, and how that hope in Johnson quickly fell apart.

Get the book here: https://wwnorton.com/books/9781324004752/about-the-book/description

Show Notes:

Los Angeles Review of Books: Robert S. Levine – “Frederick Douglass and the Trouble with Critical Race Theory”

https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/frederick-douglass-and-the-trouble-with-critical-race-theory/

The New York Times: Jennifer Szalai – “When Frederick Douglass Met Andrew Johnson”

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/30/books/review-failed-promise-reconstruction-frederick-douglass-andrew-johnson-robert-levine.html

Politics and Prose: Robert Levine — The Failed Promise (VIDEO)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tH-sTCsS6iM

U.S. National Archives: The Failed Promise: Reconstruction, Frederick Douglass, and the Impeachment of Andrew Johnson (VIDEO)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XTs9jE5xBzc

The Wall Street Journal: Randall Fuller – “‘The Failed Promise’ Review: The Mad King and the Lost Cause”

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-failed-promise-review-reconstruction-frederick-douglass-andrew-johnson-impeachment-11629475849

The Washington Post: DeNeen L. Brown – “An abolitionist’s hope meets a president’s hypocrisy”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/an-abolitionists-hope-meets-a-presidents-hypocrisy/2021/09/02/47977920-ff59-11eb-ba7e-2cf966e88e93_story.html

Heartland’s Tim Benson is joined by Glenn Ellmers of Hillsdale College and the Claremont Institute to discuss his new book, The Soul of Politics: Harry V. Jaffa and the Fight for America. They discuss how Jaffa massively influenced the study of political philosophy in the 20th Century, as well as our understanding of Abraham Lincoln. They also discuss the influence of Leo Strauss on Jaffa and his writings, and the importance of both men today.

Get the book here: https://www.encounterbooks.com/books/the-soul-of-politics/

Show Notes:

American Greatness: Michael Anton – An American Soul

https://amgreatness.com/2021/09/04/an-american-soul/

The American Mind: Larry Arnn - The Soul of a Political Philosopher

https://americanmind.org/features/the-soul-of-a-political-philosopher/

Anchoring Truths: Glenn Ellmers on The Soul of Politics (Podcast)

http://commentary.jameswilsoninstitute.org/2021/08/podcast-glenn-ellmers-on-the-soul-of-politics/

Claremont Review of Books: Glenn Ellmers – Why Harry V. Jaffa Matters

https://claremontreviewofbooks.com/why-harry-v-jaffa-matters/

The Three Whiskey Happy Hour: ‘The Soul of Politics,’ with Glenn Ellmers (Podcast)

https://ricochet.com/podcast/powerline/the-three-whisky-happy-hour-the-soul-of-politics-with-glenn-ellmers/