Reviews – Half A League Onward

Posted on September 1, 2020 by Dave Dentel

Nazi Trilogy Shows How Evil Ultimately Consumes Itself


Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-60015-0002 / Giso Löwe / CC-BY-SA 3.0

By Dave Dentel

History’s most notorious criminals compel a certain fascination, though we are well-advised not to become too enthralled.

St. Paul encouraged us to dwell on the true, just and lovely, a discipline no doubt meant to keep us from being enticed by the trappings of evil, the power it sometimes imbues (however briefly), or from forgetting that except for divine grace tyrants like Adolf Hitler might exist as the rule rather than the exception.

Then again, speaking the truth is always a defense against malevolence. And few have unveiled the utter depravity of Hitler’s regime in as meticulous detail as historian Richard J. Evans.

Posted on August 2, 2020 by Dave Dentel · 1 Comment

Scholar: History Tolerated Slavery for Millenia. What Happened?

By Dave Dentel

In the past three hundred years, the kind of slavery that permits one human being to own another has gone from near universal acceptance to being all but eradicated.

Scholar David Brion Davis attempts to explain why this momentous transformation occurred in his dense and highly academic tome, Slavery and Human Progress.

Davis’s work is not so much a history of slavery and how it came to be (mostly) abolished as it is a recounting of what people have thought and said about the institution.

Posted on July 28, 2020July 28, 2020 by Dave Dentel

Stuck at Home? Travel Book Helps You Explore Europe in America.

Old World charm? Nicht! It’s New Glarus, Wis., the Swiss Capital of America.

Has COVID-19 canceled your dream trip to Europe?

Great news! There are pockets of Europe dotted across the United States. Small towns for the most part, inhabited by descendants of the immigrants who founded them. They celebrate the usual American holidays, but also celebrate their heritage in a big way.

Their buildings mimic European architecture, their restaurants feature ethnic dishes, and most of them hold festivals honoring their heritage.

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Take a trip through an America you may not have noticed before, guided by Ruth Dentel—world traveler.

Posted on July 4, 2020July 4, 2020 by Dave Dentel

Say It Isn’t So, Jeeves! Author Shows Wodehouse was No Nazi Collaborator.

 by Dave Dentel

Anyone who has read P.G. Wodehouse, or watched any of the copious film and television adaptions of his works, knows that the British wit is not just hilarious—he’s delightfully frivolous.

Though his stories and novels do represent some of the best humor writing of a certain era, it’s a stretch to say that they aspire to literary aims such as critiquing society or forwarding any sort of political agenda. For the most part, Wodehouse wrote with one overarching goal in mind—to give his readers a good laugh.

You can imagine how much it dismayed me, then, to learn that for a time Wodehouse’s reputation was tainted by a very serious allegation. This master of upper-class English mirth was actually accused of turning traitor by collaborating with the Nazis during World War II.

Posted on June 14, 2020 by Dave Dentel

Indian Scholar: Bible Built the West—Let It Transform the East, Too

Christians in India circa 1870.

By Dave Dentel

It may have been the dust jacket design that threw me off. The title is set in ornate lettering and illuminated with a medieval-style vine-and-serpent motif, which led me to think this was a book about the ancient origins of the Bible and how it emerged in its present form.

Instead, The Book That Made Your World examines a much more familiar theme—how the Bible influenced and accommodated the rise of Western civilization. But what makes it different, and unusually potent, is that its thesis is propounded by an Easterner who sees this historical influence as a good thing.

Posted on May 12, 2020July 13, 2020 by Dave Dentel

Thriller Examines the Nature of Evil on the Eve of World War II

By Bradley Weber—Night Paris Street

By Dave Dentel

When I picked up A Coffin for Dimitrios, I was expecting a light alternative to the nonfiction I had been plodding through.

Having seen the 1940s movie version, and being a fan of between-the-wars detective thrillers, I was all set for author Eric Ambler to sate my palate with an easily consumed tale of trench-coated protagonists tracking down international rogues and bringing them to justice.

Posted on March 22, 2020March 22, 2020 by Dave Dentel

Scholar: American Founders’ Faith as Complex as It was Genuine

By Dave Dentel

Of all the things one could claim about America’s Founding Fathers, among the least controversial is to assert that their bold experiment in democracy also brought about expanded civil liberties—most notably for religious freedom.

But what inspired this achievement? More to the point, just what sort of personal faith did these men adhere to, and how did it affect them?

Posted on February 24, 2020February 25, 2020 by Dave Dentel

Author Depicts American Revolution as Clash of Personalities

Bunker-hill-Philbrick-review-2-24-2020 By Dave Dentel

Can an event as violent and fraught with emotional turmoil as the American Revolution ever be examined in a way that does justice to both sides?

Nathaniel Philbrick certainly strives for this ambitious goal in Bunker Hill: A City, A Siege, A Revolution—the first book in his trilogy on the American War for Independence.

Posted on January 22, 2020 by Dave Dentel

Book Chronicles How Early Navy Embodied Constitution’s Defense of Common Rights

By Dave Dentel

In the campaign to ratify the U.S. Constitution, one argument advanced by proponents of the document is that it would create a stronger federal government better equipped to defend the nascent republic from foreign belligerents.

The prescience of this thesis is borne out in Ian W. Toll’s book, Six Frigates: The Epic History of the Foundation of the U.S. Navy.

Posted on June 25, 2018March 5, 2020 by Dave Dentel

Apologetics Survey Weaves a Story You Can Believe

Man has been rebelling against God since well before the law was given on Mount Sinai, depicted here by Dore.

Godless despotism reached its apotheosis in the 20^th century, killing millions and wreaking destruction on a scale unequaled in human history.

These crimes no doubt did much to taint the flavor of atheism associated with this murderous movement and the particular political forms in which it was manifested: fascism and communism.