Friday's Notes

Science devotes its special issue of 2 October to a 4.4 million year old hominid species, ardipithecus ramidus, and its environment. Many scientists think it may be that last common ancestor we share with chimpanzees.

Frederic Raphael,"‘The One Wanted Most'," Literary Review, September, reviews Susan Gubar's Judas: A Biography.

Corey Robin,"The First Counter-revolutionary," The Nation, 30 September, reviews Quentin Skinner's Hobbes and Republican Liberty.

Freya Johnston,"Toilet Humours," Literary Review, September, reviews David Nokes's Samuel Johnson: A Life.

Jackson Lears,"The Usefulness of Cranks: Nature as a standpoint for social criticism," TNR, 29 September, reviews James William Gibson's A Reenchanted World: The Quest for A New Kinship With Nature, Edward Humes's Eco Barons: The Dreamers, Schemers, and Millionaires Who Are Saving Our Planet, Bill McKibben, ed., American Earth: Environmental Writing Since Thoreau, Steve Nicholls's Paradise Found: Nature in America at the Time of Discovery, Jonathan Peter Spiro's Defending The Master Race: Conservation, Eugenics, And The Legacy Of Madison Grant, and Donald Worster's A Passion for Nature: The Life of John Muir.

Roberta Smith,"Setting Full Sail Toward the 20th Century," NYT, 1 October, reviews"Thomas Chambers (1808-1869): American Marine and Landscape Painter," an exhibit at Manhattan's American Folk Art Museum.

Janet Maslin,"Tracing the Many Lives of Anne Frank and Her Still-Vivid Wartime Diary," NYT, 30 September, reviews Francine Prose's Anne Frank: The Book, the Life, the Afterlife.