Books

• 
• 3-10-14
  

  Review of Seth Lipsky’s “The Rise of Abraham Cahan”

  by Robert Parmet

  Abraham Cahan's story is the quintessential American success story.

• 
• 3-3-14
  

  Review of Rex Bowman and Carlos Santos's "Rot, Riot, and Rebellion"

  by Luther Spoehr

  Mr. Jefferson's University made "Animal House" look tame.

• 
• 2-24-14
  

  Review of Jon K. Lauck's "The Lost Region"

  by Ron Briley

  Towards a revival of Midwestern history.

• 
• 2-21-14
  

  What They're Reading: Elena Schneider

  by Victoria Torres

  Schneider is a scholar of Latin American history, but that's not what she reads in her spare time.

• 
• 2-17-14
  

  Review of Michael J. Kramer's "The Republic of Rock"

  by Ron Briley

  How hippie music became a bastion of "hip capitalism."

• 
• 2-17-14
  

  Review of Luke Harding's "The Snowden Files"

  by Murray Polner

  The first of no doubt many dissections of the Edward Snowden saga.

• 
• 2-10-14
  

  Review of James Tobin's "The Man He Became"

  by Bernard von Bothmer

  The greatest comeback in American political history?

• 
• 2-10-14
  

  Review of Samuel G. Freedman's "Breaking the Line"

  by Luther Spoehr

  Black college football, civil rights -- and publisher's hype.

• 
• 1-27-14
  

  Review of Betty Medsger's "The Burglary"

  by Murray Polner

  A strikingly relevant book for the modern age.

• 
• 1-20-14
  

  Review of Dean Starkman's "The Watchdog That Didn’t Bark"

  by Jim Sleeper

  Reporting for the republic.

• 
• 1-20-14
  

  Review of Jack Cheever's "Act of War"

  by Murray Polner

  A riveting account of the 1968 spy ship capture that nearly brought the U.S. and North Korea to the brink of war.

• 
• 1-13-14
  

  Review of Jesse Norman's "Edmund Burke: The First Conservative"

  by Luther Spoehr

  (Re)introducing a founder of conservatism.

• 
• 12-30-13
  

  Review of Stephen Kinzer's "The Brothers"

  by Jeremy Kuzmarov

  Inside the narrow, dogmatic world of the Dulles brothers, the architects of America's Cold War.

• 
• 12-30-13
  

  Review of Gabriel Miller's "William Wyler"

  by Ron Briley

  Why isn't William Wyler mentioned in the same breath as Alfred Hitchcock or John Ford?

• 
• 12-24-13
  

  Review of Greg Woolf's "Rome: An Empire's Story"

  by Jim Cullen

  An epic history, thematic as well as narrative, engineered into a tensile 300 pages.

• 
• 12-30-13
  

  Review of Robert Miraldi's "Seymour Hersh: Scoop Artist"

  by Murray Polner

  Seymour Hersh remains the true giant of investigative journalism.

• 
• 12-9-13
  

  Nineteenth-Century Populism's Surprisingly Open-Minded Take on Immigration

  by Scott McLemee

  Walter Nugent's "The Tolerant Populists" has just been reissued in time for its fiftieth anniversary.

• 
• 12-16-13
  

  Review of Larry Cuban's "Inside the Black Box of Classroom Practice"

  by Luther Spoehr

  School reform is not merely complicated, it's complex.  And context matters.

• 
• 12-16-13
  

  Review of Scott Anderson's "Lawrence in Arabia"

  by Ron Briley

  A stirring biography of T.E. Lawrence, yes, but also a thoughtful examination of Western imperialism and Mideast politics.

• 
• 12-9-13
  

  Review of Vern Bengtson's "Families and Faith"

  by Jim Cullen

  A landmark study emphasizes continuity, not change, since 1970.