Things Noted Here & There

Catherine Rampell,"Jews and the Burden of Money," NYT, 12 February, reviews Jerry Z. Muller's Capitalism and the Jews.

Were you composing a symposium of articles on the early American republic, you might include Russell Shorto's"How Christian Were the Founders?" NYT, 11 February, and Gary Rosen's"Freedom's Laboratory," NYT, 12 February, a review of Timothy Ferris's The Science of Liberty: Democracy, Reason, and the Laws of Nature. Kurt Anderson's"Is Democracy Killing Democracy?" NYMagazine, 5 February, otoh, has as much bad history per paragraph as you're likely to find anywhere.

Jonathan Yardley reviews Kathryn Allamong Jacob's King of the Lobby: The Life and Times of Sam Ward, Man-About-Washington in the Gilded Age for the Washington Post, 7 February. Andrew Young's tell-all book about his experience with John and Elizabeth Edwards, The Politician, reminds Jacob Heilbrunn of money, politics, and sex in Gilded Age Washington.

Michael Idov,"Gulag Humor," The Book, 12 February, reviews Karen L. Ryan's Stalin in Russian Satire, 1917-1991.

Godfrey Cheshire,"North Carolina as It Was, Split and Seething," NYT, 12 February, reviews the new film version of Timothy Tyson's Blood Done Sign My Name. Here's the trailer for the film. Hat tip.

Below the fold, updating the Niall Ferguson story:

Afsun Qureshi,"The British bargain," National Post, 10 February, warns Ayaan Hirsi-Ali, in the words of England's Jimmy Goldsmith:"When you marry your mistress, you create a job vacancy."

Eric P. Newcomer,"The Ferguson Affair," Harvard Crimson, 10 February;

Ephraim Hardcastle,"Historian Niall Ferguson has twice before declared his love for other women," Daily Mail, 11 February;

Anne McElvoy,"Sex and summitry: the rise of the raunchy summit," Evening Standard, 11 February;

Christopher Shea,"You can take the historian out of Britain ...," Brainiac, 11 February; and

"PROFILE: Niall Ferguson," London's Sunday Times, 14 February.