| Editor | Charles R. Kesler |
|---|---|
| Managing Editor | John Kienker |
| Senior Editor | William Voegeli |
| Frequency | Quarterly |
| Circulation | 14,000[a][citation needed] |
| Publisher | Ryan Williams |
| Founded | 2000 (25 years ago) (2000) |
| Company | The Claremont Institute |
| Country | United States |
| Based in | Claremont, California |
| Language | English |
| Website | claremontreviewofbooks |
| ISSN | 1554-0839 |
| OCLC | 184908708 |
TheClaremont Review of Books (CRB) is a quarterly review ofpolitics andstatesmanship published by the conservativeClaremont Institute. A typical issue consists of several book reviews and a selection ofessays on topics ofconservatism and political philosophy, history, and literature.[1]
The editor is American political scientistCharles R. Kesler. The managing editor is John Kienker, and the senior editor, William Voegeli.[2]Joseph Tartakovsky is a contributing editor. Contributors have includedWilliam F. Buckley Jr.,Harry V. Jaffa,Mark Helprin (a columnist for the magazine),Victor Davis Hanson,Michael Anton,Diana Schaub, Gerard Alexander,David P. Goldman,[3]Allen C. Guelzo,Joseph Epstein,Hadley P. Arkes, andJohn Marini.
Legal scholarKen Masugi was editor of the first iteration of theClaremont Review of Books which existed for just under two years in the mid-1980s. According to Jon Baskin, writing in theChronicle of Higher Education, it "looked more like a college newspaper," and had about 600 subscribers.[2]
TheReview was re-established in 2000 under the editorship ofCharles R. Kesler in whatThe New York Times described as "a conservative, if eclectic, answer toThe New York Review of Books."[1] In 2017 it had about 14,000 subscribers.[2][citation needed]
Authors who are regularly featured in theReview are sometimes nicknamed "Claremonsters."[4][5]
According to historianGeorge H. Nash, the editors and writers at Claremont areStraussian intellectually, heavily influenced by the ideas ofLeo Strauss and his studentHarry V. Jaffa. In their view, theProgressive Era culminating in the Presidency ofWoodrow Wilson marked an ideological and political repudiation of political ideals of the Constitution and theAmerican Founders, replacing a carefully limited government with government by experts and bureaucrats who were insulated from popular consent. They saw similar threats in the presidency ofBarack Obama.[6]
TheReview took a pro-Trump position during the2016 election campaign, with an article by Charles Kessler criticizing theNever Trump movement. "Conservatives care too much about the party and the country to wash our hands of this election," he wrote. "A third party bid would be quixotic.".[7] Nevertheless, theReview published articles by both Trump supporters and "Never Trumpers" during the 2016 campaign, moving after his election to a thoroughly pro-Trump position.[1] According to theNew York Times, in the spring of 2017 theReview was "being hailed as the bible of highbrow Trumpism."[2][1]
Jon Baskin understood theReview's pro-Trump stance as "an expression of the belief that conservative intellectuals can cut a path between the East Coast Straussians' political reticence and the ineffectual tinkering of the think tankers," but was at a loss to explain "how a group so attached to the principles of the Constitution could place its faith in the author ofThe Art of the Deal."[2] According to senior editor William Voegeli, the reason lies in Kesler's scholarly examination of the origins of American progressivism.[2] In a series of articles and in his bookI Am the Change: Barack Obama and the Future of Liberalism, Kesler has argued that Woodrow Wilson and the first generations of Americantechnocrats with PhDs earned at American universities produced the modern American "administrative state." To Kesler and the other Claremonsters, the administrative state has not only produced a series of costly and ineffective social programs, it has eroded democratic norms, substituting the shallow certainties of social science. In Baskin's phrasing, "one of the things that is most disturbing about Trump for liberal and conservative elites (including some East Coast Straussians)—his utter disdain for expertise and convention—is what is most promising about him from the point of view of the Claremonsters."[2] As Voegeli put it, "Our view is that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, whereas progressives are inclined to think that government derives just powers from the expertise of the experts."[2]
During theGeorge W. Bush administration, theReview "made a conservative case against the war in Iraq."[2]
Kesler's "Democracy and the Bush Doctrine"[8] was reprinted in an anthology of conservative writings on theIraq War, edited byCommentary Managing EditorGary Rosen. TheCRB was party to a high-profile exchange inCommentary between Editor-at-LargeNorman Podhoretz and CRB editor Charles R. Kesler andCRB contributors and Claremont Institute senior fellows Mark Helprin and Angelo M. Codevilla over theBush Administration’s conduct of the Iraq War.
In September 2016, two months before theUS 2016 presidential election, theReview published an online-only article entitled "The Flight 93 Election."[9] Written byMichael Anton under a pseudonym, the essay compared the election to choices that faced the passengers onFlight 93, one of the four hijacked planes used in theSeptember 11th attacks. When the article was read byRush Limbaugh on his radio show, the sudden surge in demand to read it crashed theCRB website.[10] Addressing an audience of Republicans andNever-Trump conservatives, Anton argued that allowing the Democratic candidateHillary Clinton to become president by abstaining from voting was the equivalent of not charging the cockpit.
