Modern History Notes

Dwight Garner,"Communism's Path: A Once-Vigorous Idea That Has Lost Its Muscle," NYT, 8 December, reviews David Priestland's The Red Flag: A History of Communism.

Adam Kirsch,"Partisan Poet," Tablet, 8 December, reviews Dina Porat's The Fall of a Sparrow: The Life and Times of Abba Kovner.

David Runciman,"I Could Fix That," LRB, 17 December, reviews Taylor Branch's The Clinton Tapes: Wrestling History in the White House.

Kevin Mattson,"In Dubious Battle," bookforum, December/ January, reviews Michael Bérubé's The Left at War.

Finally, farewell to Shearer Davis Bowman. The author of Masters and Lords : Mid-19th-Century U.S. Planters and Prussian Junkers and At the Precipice: Americans North and South during the Secession Crisis, Professor Bowman taught at Hampden-Sydney, the University of Texas, the University of Kentucky, and Berea College.