Shmuel Rosner,"Ignorance Abroad," Slate, 19 January, and Robert Kagan,"How America Met the Mideast," Washington Post, 21 January, review Michael Oren's Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America in the Middle East, 1776 to the Present.

Ross Terrill,"Mao Now," Wilson Quarterly, Autumn, looks back at Mao Zedong 30 years after his death.

Ishmael Beah,"The Making, and Unmaking, of a Child Soldier," NYT Magazine, 14 January, is the story of a child caught in the horror of Sierra Leone's civil war. Farrar, Straus & Giroux will publish its longer form, A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier. Thanks to Derek Catsam at dcat for the tip.

Neil King, Jr.,"How Rice Uses History Lessons," Wall Street Journal, 19 January. Thanks to Manan Ahmed for the tip.

Google Books Library Project continues to expand, with the announcement yesterday that the University of Texas will add its important rare books and holdings in early Latin American history to the effort. UT joins Google's prior agreements with the New York Public, Madrid's Complutense, Harvard, Oxford, UC, Berkeley, and other major libraries.