Freespace

This year's reading

Best book I read this year:

1. The Wolf and the Buffalo by Elmer Kelton

Smashing. One of Kelton's six great novels, this one is certainly a masterpiece. Kelton said that he originally was asked to write about a Buffalo Soldier, and took that up, but was so distracted by the Indian character that it soon became a sort of parallel novel and grew to fantastic proportions. It was so long that he was afraid his publisher, Reader's Digest Condensed Books, would refuse to publish it. Instead, they asked him to make it longer and focus more on the Indian character! And good thing, too. Honestly, this is a true work of art. The ending reminded me of Hamlet. And the march through the Llano Estacado was totally riveting. I actually began to feel thirsty reading it. 

Honorable Mentions:

The Greeks and America's founding fathers

The Objective Standard has published my three lectures on the influence of Greek philosophy on America's founding fathers as an e-book and made it available for free. You can download it here.

Lawyers have rights, too

Today's Wall Street Journal includes my op-ed, coathored with Jacob Huebert, about mandatory bar association requirements in 32 states (I don't know why the sub-headline says 18; that's the number that don't require it). We argue that this violates the First Amendment rights of lawyers, and discuss our ongoing litigation in North Dakota and Oregon.

Allen Guelzo recommends my Frederick Douglass book in the Wall Street Journal

As part of its "Best Books of 2018" feature, the Wall Street Journal asked Allen Guelzo--a very fine scholar of Civil War history--what he recommended, and he was kind enough to recommend my book on Frederick Douglass, along with two others.

(And it's true: although I don't talk much about Douglass's religious beliefs in my book, I do not buy the argument that Douglass was a profoundly religious man in his maturity. As I explain here, Douglass largely abandoned his early religious fervor and by the end of the War was, I believe, essentially a modern secularist. He was probably not an atheist, although Ms. Assing certainly pressured him hard in that direction, but while he believed in a vague sense of providence, he did not believe that God intervened in human affairs, and was not only a religious skeptic, but was outright scornful toward the more intense forms of devotion in his day.)

Xmas gift suggestions for Objectivists

Have a friend who's really into Ayn Rand--but already owns all her books and stuff? I have a dozen or so suggestions for Xmas presents he or she might like (and some of you might want to get for yourselves) at The Objective Standard.

Talking with Armstrong & Getty about free speech, Edgar Allan Poe, and state Constitutions

In case you missed it, I talked this morning with A&G about these and many other things. Listen online here.