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Book Review Tag

Posted by Leslie Eastman on September 08, 2019 17 Comments
Legal Insurrection has covered the replacement of serious historical scholarship with anti-American and anti-capitalist revisionism since its inception.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on March 23, 2019 7 Comments
Earlier this month, I noted that Victor Davis Hanson, fellow Californian and a military historian at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, had been targeted in social media by writers associated with The Bulwark. His crime? Apparently, it was that Hanson had the temerity to write what he considered to be an even-handed review of President Donald Trump's first two years in office entitled The Case for Trump.  The attack inspired me to purchase the book, and share my thoughts on it with Legal Insurrection.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on October 14, 2018 12 Comments
I have a confession to make before reviewing the latest book by conservative icon and author Michael Savage: I am not a big fan.  There is no denying that Savage is exceptionally smart and deeply passionate about this country, the U.S. Constitution, and conservative principles. On his radio show, his vitriolic and pessimistic take on subjects differs from my normally optimistic, humor-oriented view of politics and current events. I normally don't stay tuned in for very long when I alight upon his radio show, as Savage's tone can be a bit too bitter for my personal taste. However, his latest book, Stop Mass Hysteria: America's Insanity from the Salem Witch Trials to the Trump Witch Hunt, is a smart, engaging, and timely look at angry mobs and their historic consequences.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on October 02, 2018 5 Comments
Clearly, one of the industries helped most by the election of President Donald Trump is the book publishing business.
"Fire and Fury," "A Higher Loyalty," "Fear": three books about Donald Trump have each sold more than a million copies in the United States, a first that reflects Americans' fascination with their ever-surprising president. The great majority of successful books on politics have been written by politicians themselves -- or by ghostwriters working with them.
The latest entry in the political genre is from Townhall columnist, California lawyer, and witty conservative pundit Kurt Schlichter. Fun fact: He attended University of California - San Diego as an undergraduate at the same time I was a graduate student in chemistry there. Perhaps his writings in the campus newspaper (The Koala) affected me subconsciously, as I became an independent conservative 5 years after my graduation.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on May 27, 2018 21 Comments
As this is Memorial Day weekend, I wanted to share with you details about an engrossing book I just finished, which is related to both World Wars.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on April 21, 2018 8 Comments
An exceptional new book has come out that features a vastly successful businessman targeted by several government agencies that are in collusion. In an intriguing twist, the main character is not President Trump. Scorched Worth: A True Story of Destruction, Deceit and Government Corruption, covers the hard fought legal battle between Sierra Pacific Industries (SPI), the second largest lumber producer in the nation, and the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire) and the United States Forest Service.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on October 17, 2017 6 Comments
While President Donald Trump and our state's politicians seemingly have called a temporary truce during California's historic wildfire emergencies, I thought this might be a golden opportunity to review a wonderful, new book: California's War Against Donald Trump. The books authors are James V. Lacy (a frequent guest on Fox Business News Channel’s “Varney & Company,” who served as a General Counsel in the Reagan administration) and Katy Grimes, a longtime investigative political journalist and analyst form Sacramento who often contributes additional California reports for Legal Insurrection (because I cannot possibly cover all the insanity by myself).

Posted by Vijeta Uniyal on September 22, 2017 2 Comments
At a time when smear campaigns against Israel often go unchallenged on college campuses and anti-Israel activists hijack protest movements across the U.S. to attack of the Jewish State, a newly published book tells the story of Israel's 69-year silent journey to impact the world and serve those in most need. "United Nation: The Humanitarian Spirit of Israel" written by the Israeli entrepreneur David Kramer, is a collection of 40 stories, each illustrating the benevolent and altruistic side of Israel that the mainstream media and the 24-hour news cycle don't care to show.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on August 27, 2017 12 Comments
If there was ever a more perfect synchronicity to the publication of a book and the news cycle, I would be hard pressed to think of one better than the release of Dinesh D'Souza's latest: The Big Lie - Exposing the Nazi Roots of the American Left. Germany's Adolph Hitler created the phrase, “the big lie,” to describe a lie so vast that “the great masses of the people” will fall for precisely because they can fathom that it isn't true. In The Big Lie, D’Souza shows that the Democratic Left has orchestrated a campaign to paint President Trump, Republicans, conservatives...essentially anyone who doesn't agree with them... as Nazis. This smear is used to cover up its own dirty brand of fascist tactics. The current spate of charges against President Donald Trump and his supporters is today's "Big Lie".

Posted by William A. Jacobson on June 29, 2017 7 Comments
I just finished reading Mark Levin's new book, Rediscovering Americanism and The Tyranny of Progressivism. The book debuted at No 1 on the NY Times bestseller list. This is the third of Levin's books I've read and reviewed. There definitely is a theme: The necessity of stopping the march of progressivism in order to preserve individual liberty. From my review of The Liberty Amendments – Mark Levin’s Constitutional Sequester (2013):

Posted by Leslie Eastman on May 26, 2017 22 Comments
Before I begin the review of Rising Star: The Making of Barack Obama by David J. Garrow, I feel the need to make a confession in the interest of full disclosure. Barack Obama has been very inspirational to me personally. He inspired me to help co-found the SoCal Tax Revolt Coalition. He inspired be to become an independent conservative blogger. He inspired me to re-register as "No Party Preference" in my home state of California. So, why did I order this 7-pound book on Obama?

Posted by Leslie Eastman on July 17, 2016 81 Comments
When the 2016 election cycle started, I had no dog in the GOP primary fight—I had already decided on #NeverHillary. However, as the primary season unfolded, I was very surprised that business tycoon and showman Donald Trump was decimating the field of very experienced politicos and conservative icons. I eventually became a supporter of Donald Trump after regularly reading the posts of Don Surber, who has been covering the truly inept reporting we have been treated to during the 2016 election cycle on his wonderfully entertaining blog. Surber, a recovering journalist with over 30 years of experience, was recently inspired to consolidate his many posts on the woefully inaccurate punditry concerning Trump's campaign for his new book: Trump the Press.

Posted by New Neo on May 02, 2016 11 Comments
Allan Bloom's book The Closing of the American Mind was published in 1987, which is now very close to 30 years ago. And yet its relevance has only grown in the intervening years. It describes the influence of the left on the university and what it teaches, and how it has affected subsequent generations of students and how they think about a host of things, including America itself. Here's an excerpt from the book that very much resonates today:
Contrary to much contemporary wisdom, the United States has one of the longest uninterrupted political traditions of any nation in the world. What is more, that tradition is unambiguous; its meaning is articulated in simple, rational speech that is immediately comprehensible and powerfully persuasive to all normal human beings. America tells one story: the unbroken, ineluctable progress of freedom and equality. From its first settlers and its political foundings on, there has been no dispute that freedom and equality are the essence of justice for us. No one serious or notable has stood outside this consensus...All significant political disputes have been about the meaning of freedom and equality, not about their rightness...

Posted by Leslie Eastman on April 28, 2016 4 Comments
Unwinding after a day of regulatory analysis and political opining, I often read true crime novels. A compelling one I just started is In He Killed Them All by Fox News Channel host Jeanine Pirro. Pirro's book engagingly and brilliantly details her experiences trying to bring suspected murderer Robert Durst to justice for the deaths of his first wife Kathleen (Kathie) McCormack Durst, Morris Black, and his longtime friend Susan Berman. The title of the book stems from the dramatic conclusion of the popular 2015 HBO series that centered around these cases, The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst. During the last episode, after being confronted with some damning evidence in the form of letters, Durst headed to the bathroom to regain his composure.
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