Wolf of the Deep: Raphael Semmes and the Notorious Confederate Raider CSS Alabama by Stephen Fox. Hardcover: 336 pages. (New York, NY: Knopf, 2007.) Amazon Price: $17.13.

Wolf of the Deep: Raphael Semmes and the Notorious Confederate Raider CSS Alabama is a fluid and captivating tale of the Confederate Raider helmed by the Confederate Admiral Raphael Semmes. This book, in particular, focuses on his almost two-year stint as captain of the infamous Confederate privateer, the Alabama.

From Union to Empire: Essays in the Jeffersonian Tradition by Clyde Wilson. Hardcover: 304 pages. (Columbia, SC: Foundation for American Education, 2003), Amazon.com $24.95.

Review by Ryan Setliff

From Union to Empire: Essays in the Jeffersonian Tradition is an anthology of essays and writings by historian Clyde Wilson. As Joseph Stromberg writes in the introduction, "Dr. Clyde Wilson is a Christian, a Southerner, an American, an historian and a conservative. For over three decades he has worked on the definitive edition of the Papers of John C. Calhoun, has written on Calhoun and published a collection of Calhoun's most important writings." Wilson is a luminary figure amongst southern conservatives in my humble opinion, and yet modest about his own accomplishments. He has also written a splendid biographical history of General James Johnston Pettigrew and assembled an anthology of essays in tribute to the late Mel Bradford. As Stromberg opines, "His writings—published in Modern Age, Chronicles, Telos, and many other forums—shows Professor Wilson off as the kind of conservative who is a stalwart defender of federalism and republicanism, and the liberties associated with them. Such conservatives are few and far between these days."

The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History by Thomas Woods, Jr. Hardcover: 270 pages. (Washington, DC: Regnery Publishing, 2004), $13.57.

Review by Ryan Setliff

The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History is a handy compendium which deftly challenges the politically correct orthodoxy that has become entrenched in the academia and media establishment. This politically incorrect guide to American history is not just some eccentric rewrite, but a bold challenge to years of prevalent liberal mythology and revisionism that has become holy writ amongst academia, the media and the publishing establishment. With the help of the Marxist Frankfurt School, there has been no shortage of trashing of America's heroes and a real fog has been cast over our past as it really was. Also, there is a pervasive tendency to accentuate the negative and ignore the positive in American history. Not surprisingly, the founding fathers are dismissed as repressive white men whose defining attribute revolves around being slaveholders. Many American history books celebrate the aggrandizement of power within the State and others like Howard Zinn echo Marxist themes of class warfare where the American people find a savior in FDR with his sweeping New Deal social and labour reforms. In the eyes of many historians, centralizers and leaders that champion big government have become America's heroes.

Reassessing the Presidency: The Rise of the Executive State and the Decline of Freedom by Ludwig von Mises. Hardcover: 826 pages. (Auburn, AL: Mises Institute, 2001), $35.00.

Review by Ryan Setliff

Reassessing the Presidency: The Rise of the Executive State and the Decline of Freedom is an intriguing historical assessment of the American Presidency, which has become one of the most powerful institutions in the world. Likewise, the American Presidency has dramatically changed since its inception. Most modern history books on the Presidency are characterized by adulation of executive power, administrative largess, and aggressive federal intervention in domestic, economic and foreign policy. Nonetheless, this powerful reassessment of the Presidency by the Mises Institute challenges such hagiographic tomes that idolize the President and venerate the dictatorial Presidents for their constitutional usurpations and assumptions of un-delegated power solidified as precedent.

This powerful tome is essentially an anthology of essays offering a critical analysis of the Presidency as an institution, and the various Presidents through the year, as well as an assessment of their policy prerogatives, etc. Most of the authors do not mince words and they hold to a priori presupposition that constitutionally limited government is desirable and offer no apologies in their condemnation of those who usurp it. Some contributors are cynical enough to bluntly declare the utter impossibility of limited government like Hans-Hermann Hoppe.

North Against South: The American Iliad 1848-1877 by Ludwell H. Johnson. Paperback: 301 pages. (Columbia, SC: Foundation for American Education, 2003), Amazon.com $9.95.

Review by Ryan Setliff

North Against South: The American Iliad 1848-1877 by Ludwell Johnson is a most provocative account of the road to disunion, the late War Between the States, and the short-lived Confederacy which was militarily extirpated in 1865.

Ludwell Johnson presents basic objective historical facts from the beginning of the sectional crisis that afflicted antebellum America. The problem today is that what passes for objectivity these days is scholarship that squarely casts the blame for the conflict on southern intemperance while marginalizing northern usurpations of the compact and its conduct in the war. While it is admitted that a pro-Unionist could feasibly write an objective account, many historians spend their time obfuscating historical fact, rationalizing atrocities and downplaying abuses committed by the Lincoln regime.

The Real Lincoln : A New Look at Abraham Lincoln, His Agenda, and an Unnecessary War by Thomas DiLorenzo. Hardcover: 384 pages. (New York, NY: Three Rivers Press, 2002), $10.85.

Review by Ryan Setliff

The Real Lincoln : A New Look at Abraham Lincoln, His Agenda, and an Unnecessary War is destined to be a classic! DiLorenzo offers an insightful expose on the Real Lincoln, his unconstitutional regime and unnecessary war. Columnist Joseph Sobran calls it, "a devastating critique of America's most famous President." Many Americans nostalgically venerate Abraham Lincoln as the greatest President throughout American history. His standing as the Great Emancipator and a champion of black equality has become part of a celebrated, albeit erroneous American mythology. This book carries the endorsement of acclaimed black conservative Walter Williams who also repudiates the myth the slavery abolition was the moral cause and catalyst for Lincoln's war. The lionized Abe Lincoln of today has an almost cult following, but he was not very popular in his time except among government bureaucrats, politically-connected special interests and industrialists. Some leaders in Mid-Atlantic States even contemplated secession and the formation of a central confederacy. Marshall DiLorenzo masterfully dethrones the entrenched myths perpetuated for years by biased historians and revisionist ideologues which give such moral imperative to the cause that Lincoln championed.