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The new issue is now online for subscribers!

The new issue of the Claremont Review of Books is now online for subscribers!

This issue opens with an editor's note by Charles Kesler about "The New War Between the States" (unlocked and excerpted below!) and how the sharpening disagreements between red and blue states might affect the 2024 presidential election and beyond.

With affirmative action policies in higher education being one of the most important cases the Supreme Court considered this past term, the new issue takes up the question of “Whatever Happened to Civil Rights?”

In this cover feature, Diana Schaub looks at the contributions of African settlers in a colonial America dedicated in principle to equal rights, Myron Magnet evaluates Martin Luther King, Jr.’s efforts to see that principle fully realized, and in a sweeping essay, Jesse Merriam traces how racial quotas came to so dominate academia that, as he puts it, “The pursuit of diversity, as opposed to knowledge or truth, now constitutes the es­sence of what it means for a college or universi­ty to exist.”

Our latest issue also features senior editor William Voegeli on the dilemma rising crime has become for the Democratic Party, contributing editor Christopher Caldwell on the discord roiling France’s politics, and Claremont fellow Scott Yenor on what country music’s most enduring female singers can teach us about men and women.

Our book reviews include Glenn Ellmers on Michael Zuckert’s A Nation So Conceived: Abraham Lincoln and the Paradox of Democratic Sovereignty; Mackubin T. Owens on Mark Moyar’s Triumph Regained: The Vietnam War, 1965–1968; and Carl R. Trueman on Mark Goldblatt’s I Feel, Therefore I Am: The Triumph of Woke Subjectivism.

There’s so much more the new CRB has to offer! We invite you to browse the table of contents and consider becoming a subscriber to access the entire issue!

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The Must-Read for The Most Well-Read

from the editor’s desk

The New War Between the States

by Charles Kesler

Among Donald Trump’s opponents in the Democratic Party and the media, many questioned the legitimacy of his 2016 election and hence of his presidency. They were not alone. As confirmed by Special Counsel John Durham’s long-gestating report into the FBI’s role in “Russiagate,” many officials within his own administration not only doubted Trump’s legitimacy and loyalty but also were eager to prevent him from governing.

     He was impeached—twice. This would have destroyed any normal politician but elicited from Trump only the unsinkable riposte that he was proud to be “the most acquitted president in American history.”

     Forced to spend enormous time and energy defending its right to make policy, however, the Trump Administration ended up making less policy overall, or at least left less of a policy imprint, than its loyal supporters might have expected. Its own internal derangements contributed to the shortfall. Denied a second term, Trumpian ambitions and policies might have been expected to languish in Mar-a-Lago along with Trump himself.

Instead, something rather unexpected happened... [Continue reading for free!]

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