What do you think?
Rate this book
The Weekly Standard and the Nerds: Superheroes, Jedi, Hobbits and more
From the pages of The Weekly Standard magazine we've compiled our best essays on nerd culture - from Superheroes to Hobbits and Jedis. This volume includes editor Jonathan Last's iconic essay "The Case for the Empire: Everything you think you know about Star Wars is wrong."
From Editor Jonathan Last:
This little volume collects some of the best nerdery to appear in The Weekly Standard over the last two decades. You will find in it everything from a meditation on the economics of comic books to a literary decoding of Harry Potter. The collection is heavy on Batman, because the Dark Knight is the most important fictional character in American letters. Obviously. It is also heavy on Star Wars, because history will one day regard George Lucas as a man in the mold of Judas Iscariot and Benedict Arnold, with his serial acts of betrayal as the great cultural tragedy of the twenty-first century.
Also, because Darth Vader and the Empire were right — a fact already becoming the consensus view of moral philosophers and political scientists.
In between you’ll find a great deal of high-class ephemera, from arguments about the sexual persuasion of Green Lantern to briefs concerning Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Because I was nerd zero at The Weekly Standard — a fact I’m certain Bill Kristol did not realize when he hired me — an embarrassing number of the essays herein are mine. You have been warned.
From Editor Jonathan Last:
This little volume collects some of the best nerdery to appear in The Weekly Standard over the last two decades. You will find in it everything from a meditation on the economics of comic books to a literary decoding of Harry Potter. The collection is heavy on Batman, because the Dark Knight is the most important fictional character in American letters. Obviously. It is also heavy on Star Wars, because history will one day regard George Lucas as a man in the mold of Judas Iscariot and Benedict Arnold, with his serial acts of betrayal as the great cultural tragedy of the twenty-first century.
Also, because Darth Vader and the Empire were right — a fact already becoming the consensus view of moral philosophers and political scientists.
In between you’ll find a great deal of high-class ephemera, from arguments about the sexual persuasion of Green Lantern to briefs concerning Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Because I was nerd zero at The Weekly Standard — a fact I’m certain Bill Kristol did not realize when he hired me — an embarrassing number of the essays herein are mine. You have been warned.
241 pages, Kindle Edition
Published October 15, 2015
5 people want to read
About the author
Jonathan V. Last
8 books46 followersJonathan V. Last is a senior writer at The Weekly Standard in Washington. His writings have been featured in The Wall Street Journal, The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The New York Post, The Claremont Review of Books, First Things, The Week, Salon, Slate, TV Guide, and elsewhere.
He lives in Virginia with his wife and two children.
He lives in Virginia with his wife and two children.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
No one has reviewed this book yet.