book review

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• SOURCE: Photographic Museum of Humanity
  7/22/2020
  

  When Monuments Become the Narrative (review)

  "Leopold’s Legacy" by Oliver Leu is the most timely of books. It details how Belgian monuments to empire sustain narratives that abdicate responsibility, divert blame, and ultimately deny Belgium’s role in the mutilation and murder of millions of people.

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• SOURCE: Slate
  7/13/2020
  

  The Book of Smells

  Historian Robert Muchembled’s new history is full of disgusting, delicious details about early modern France.

• 
• SOURCE: The New York Times
  6/14/2020
  

  The Brilliant Astronomer Who Devised New Tactics to Fight Anti-Gay Bias

  LGBTQ historian George Chauncey reviews Eric Cervini's biography of scientist Franklin Kameny, "The Deviant's War: The Homosexual vs. the United States of America."

• 
• SOURCE: The New York Times
  5/19/2020
  

  America’s Immigration Paradox

  A review of Jia Lynn Yang's new work "One Mighty and Irresistible Tide," and Adam Goodman's "The Deportation Machine."

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• SOURCE: The Guardian
  5/9/2020
  

  Rutger Bregman: The Dutch Historian who Rocked Davos and Unearthed the Real Lord of the Flies

  The historian offers a hopeful view of human nature in his latest book, "Humankind." It couldn’t have come at a better time.

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• SOURCE: Los Angeles Review of Books
  4/26/2020
  

  The (Yelling) Mothers of Us All

  by Rachel Shteir

  A review of Leandra Zarnow's biography of Bella Abzug, "Battling Bella: The Protest Politics of Bella Abzug."

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• SOURCE: Los Angeles Review of Books
  4/14/2020
  

  A Review of Mike Davis and Jon Wiener's New Book "Set the Night on Fire: L.A. in the Sixties"

  L.A. has a rich history, and it deserves to be told.

• 
• SOURCE: The New York Times
  4/7/2020
  

  What Were the Origins of the Holocaust?

  A review of German historian Gotz Aly's new book "Europe Against the Jews: 1880-1945."

• 
• SOURCE: The New York Times
  4/1/2020
  

  A Review of Andrew J. Bacevich's "American Conservatism: Reclaiming an Intellectual Tradition"

  From Henry Adams to Joan Didion, Bacevich chronicles American conservative thinking throughout the 20th century.

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• SOURCE: TIME
  12/2/19
  

  Anne Boleyn Has Had a Bad Reputation for Nearly 500 Years. Hayley Nolan Wants to Change That

  by Suyin Haynes

  As the second wife of King Henry VIII, Anne Boleyn was one of the most powerful women in the world in the 16th century.

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• SOURCE: The New York Times
  10/31/19
  

  Two Histories of Financiers Profiting From Real Estate While Homeowners Go Belly Up

  by Jennifer Szalai

  “Homewreckers,” by Aaron Glantz and “Race for Profit: How Banks and the Real Estate Industry Undermined Black Homeownership,” by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor show what happens when private speculators get buoyed by government largess while non-tycoons are largely left to fend for themselves.

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• SOURCE: Society for US Intellectual History
  9/6/19
  

  Review of “The Political Thought of America’s Founding Feminists”

  by Christine Talbot

  “Lisa Pace Vetter’s book, The Political Thought of America’s Founding Feminists, examines the political theories of seven women who were central figures in American political thought, despite their exclusion from the contemporary canon."

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• SOURCE: The New York Times
  9/29/19
  

  Biographers Peter Longerich and Brendan Simms are Revisiting Hitler in a New Authoritarian Age

  by Talya Zax

  With nationalism and anti-Semitism on the rise around the world, Longerich’s “Hitler: A Biography” and Simms’s “Hitler: A Global Biography” look at the Nazi leader’s march to power. 

• 
• SOURCE: The Activist History Review
  September 12, 2019
  

  The Activist Historian Reviews How to Be An Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi

  by Michael T. Barry Jr.

  Ibram X. Kendi's much-anticipated second book, How to Be An Antiracist, hit shelves across the world last month.

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  9/13/19
  

  Anne Gardiner Perkins's new book highlights life at Yale University for first female students

  Yale alumna Anne Gardiner Perkins digs into challenges and triumphs of Yale University’s first female students.

• 
• SOURCE: The Washington Post
  June 27, 2019
  

  Are we telling the right story of America?

  Two historians explore the myths and truths that sustain a nation-state. THIS AMERICA: The Case for the Nation By Jill Lepore. Liveright. 150 pp. $16.95; THE HEARTLAND: An American History By Kristin L. Hoganson. Penguin. 399 pp. $30

• 
• SOURCE: NY Times
  September 3, 2019
  

  Around the World with Mao Zedong

  by Ian Johnson

  Julia Lovell's "Maoism: A Global History" traces the surprisingly wide influence of Chinese Communism. 

• 
• SOURCE: Wall Street Journal
  8/4/2019
  

  ‘Charles I's Killers in America’ Review: Regicides on the Run

  Among the men who signed a king’s death warrant were two who, in the American colonies, met with admiration and ambivalence.

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• SOURCE: Nature
  7/8/2019
  

  Alexandra Witze Reviews Seven Books that Commemorate the 50th Anniversary of the Moon Landing

  Alexandra Witze savours seven books commemorating the 50th anniversary of the lunar landings.

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• SOURCE: Black Perspectives
  6/27/2019
  

  Race and Nation in the Age of Emancipations: New Collection Covers Liberalism, Emancipation, and the Atlantic World

  by Adriana Chira

  With chapters covering a broad geographic expanse (including the North and South Atlantic), the volume shows how Afro-descendants across the Western Hemisphere engaged with new liberal ideologies of inclusion while countering elite efforts to restrict the political openings created by these ideologies.