Charlie Is My Darling
Claudia Verhoeven’s new book is a valuable contribution to the crowded library of Mansonia.
George Case
· 9 min read
Review
A collection of 179 posts
Gloomy Optimist
Jefferson emerges as a man who doubted democracy's permanence yet placed his faith in future generations. Onuf and Cogliano rescue him from caricature—even if one dimension of his thought remains in shadow.
Ron Capshaw
· 6 min read
In Bad Faith
The US vice president’s new memoir leaves an unflattering impression of its author.
Graham Daseler
· 12 min read
Pathology and Politics
British author Josh Ireland’s new book about the murder of Leon Trotsky tells the gripping story of a rivalry between two very different men.
Ron Capshaw
· 11 min read
It’s My Party and I’ll Die If I Want To
The most consequential weakness of philosopher and journalist Kathleen Stock’s new polemic against assisted dying is its failure to engage with the empirical record.
Rosalind Arden
· 14 min read
Treacherous Men
A fabulous new history of the Cambridge Five by Antonia Senior provides the definitive account of Britain’s most famous traitors.
Ronald Radosh
· 12 min read
Kingdom Come
A new book about Stephen King’s early novels will only appeal to hardcore fans, but its very existence is a reminder of its subject’s incalculable cultural impact.
Kevin Mims
· 26 min read
A Man for All Seasons
Susan Owens’s handsome new monograph reconsiders the life and career of the English landscape painter John Constable.
Graham Daseler
· 9 min read
The Ballad of East and West
In a fascinating new book, historian Anthony Bale vividly reconstructs the brutal, fantastical, and sometimes deeply religious experiences of medieval travellers across Europe, the Middle East, and Asia.
Benny Morris
· 13 min read
China Is Ready for the Next War. America Is Not.
What radar and jet propulsion were to World War Two, robotics and artificial intelligence will be to the next war between great powers.
Brian Stewart
· 6 min read
Staring at the Sea
It would be very difficult to make a great film from a source as flawed as Camus’s novel, but Ozon has managed to make a very good one.
Jaspreet Singh Boparai
· 19 min read
Playing Gad
Gad Saad’s new book tackles an interesting topic. Unfortunately, the author’s narcissistic ramblings make it almost impossible to read.
Ben Sixsmith
· 8 min read
Radical Lessons in Solidarity and Resistance
The son of Bernardine Dohrn and Bill Ayers has written a perceptive, fascinating, and rather sad book about his lonely life as the child of violent revolutionaries.
Ron Capshaw
· 11 min read
The Roots of Recession
As an energy shock looms, a new book reframes recession as the product of historical circumstance, not cyclical inevitability.
Joel Kotkin
· 11 min read
Statecraft and Seduction
In an excellent new biography of Rasputin, British military historian Antony Beevor argues that perception can be a more powerful shaper of world events than reality.
Ron Capshaw
· 9 min read