Politics and the American Language: Reviews, Rants, and Commentary, 2011-2018

This new collection is William O’Rourke’s third volume of a diverse mixture of long and short articles and it extends his reputation as a brilliant social historian and curmudgeonly contrarian. More political than his previous two volumes (Signs of the Literary Times, 1993; Confessions of a Guilty Freelancer, 2012), it additionally serves as an illuminating memoir of his literary generation. These provocative pieces analyze the contemporary turbulent period, from the Obama years to the dawn...