Yikes!
/Unlike most prior White House wonks, Matt Latimer aw-shucks his way through history and into deep, deep trouble; Greg Waldmann reviews Speech Less
Read MoreHave You Seene Me?
/As Laura Kolbe shows, A New Literary History of America throws every word of its own title into question—and that’s not the most exciting part of Greil Marcus and Werner Sollors’ immense anthology
Read MoreA Handbook for Hope
/In Half the Sky, Nicholas Kristof and Sherilyn DuWunn chronicle the plight of women from the Congo to Cambodia, and everywhere else across the globe; Megan Kearns reviews their work.
Read More“… and is there nothing more you want?”
/In 1938 Neville Chamberlain faced the ultimate ‘what if’ scenario, negotiating peace with Hitler; A.C. Childers weighs in on David Faber’s new account of the results.
Read MoreHurricanes, Murders, and Music
/Ned Sublette pens a loving portrait of New Orleans before Katrina struck. Ingrid Norton reviews The Year Before the Flood.
Read MoreTomb It May Concern
/In a new work of Egyptology, bestselling author James Patterson claims he’s cracked the oldest murder case this side of Cain and Abel, but is Ascanio Tedeschi convinced?
Read MoreAin’t That America
/Foreclosure isn't the homeowner's only enemy. No one’s safe in their home when big money sniffs around; so the Supreme Court famously ruled in Kelo v. New London: John Cotter reviews muckraker Jeff Benedict’s Little Pink House.
Read MoreSuper-Semi-Quasi-Kinda-Sorta-Pseudo-Maybe-Dude-Whateveronomics
/The writers of Freakonomics are at it again, this time in super-sized form; Arthur Brock scrutinizes their findings.
Read MoreThorns Too
/In A Vindication of Love, Christina Nehring has set herself the task of reclaiming romantic love for the Twitter Age. Ingrid Norton rates the results.
Read MoreReview of Heros & Villians: Inside the Minds of the Greatest Warriors in History
/Steve Donoghue explores why eminent historian Frank McLynn's "Heroes & Villains is easily the most frustrating book he’s ever written."
Read MoreReview of Meriwether Lewis
/Find out more about Danisi and Jackson's biography of Meriwether Lewis by reading Steve Donoghue's informing review: "but we know what kind of a book Danisi and Jackson have written: meaty, entertaining, and best of all, definitive."
Read MoreThe Empire Strikes Back?
/Edward Lucas, in The New Cold War, puts a modern face on the hoary geopolitical struggle between the Russian bear and the American eagle. Greg Waldmann sorts the players and evaluates the stakes.
Read MoreBefore Nightfall
/Just as we approach the time when there will be no more living witnesses to the Second World War, Richard Evans concludes his monumental three-volume Nazi history with The Third Reich at War. Steve Donoghue makes record of the results.
Read MorePlanned Rampage
/Novelists, playwrights, and filmmakers have begun weaving the Columbine shootings into their fiction. Reviewing Dave Cullen’s Columbine, Brad Jones concentrates on the sad facts alone.
Read MorePaddy Whacked
/Malcolm Gladwell is once again on the bestseller lists, this time for Outliers, about the social science of genius. Peter Coclanis begs to differ with the vox populi.
Read MoreReview of Philip II of Macedonia
/In his review of a new biography of Philip II of Macedonia, Steve Donoghue encourages readers, "Those interested in ancient history – and yes, Alexander fans – are urged not to miss it."
Read MoreWorth the Risk
/Almost twenty-five years ago, thieves entered Boston's venerable Gardner Museum by night and stole several priceless works of art; the crime remains unsolved, and the artwork has never re-surfaced. Theories, of course, abound.
Read MoreArchimedes and the Plesiosaur
/Peter Ackroyd’s Thames: the Biography is a rambling, list-laden account of the much-storied river. Our London correspondent Bryn Haworth tests the waters.
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