More Noted Things

Finalists for the LA Times Book Prize for 2009 in History are:

Richard Holmes, Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science

Martha A. Sandweiss, Passing Strange: A Gilded Age Tale of Love and Deception Across the Color Line

Kevin Starr, Golden Dreams: California in an Age of Abundance 1950 – 1963

Amy Louise Wood, Lynching and Spectacle: Witnessing Racial Violence in America, 1890-1940

Gordon S. Wood, Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic 1789 – 1815.

In Biography, the finalists are:

Kirstin Downey, The Woman Behind the New Deal: The Life of Frances Perkins, FDR's Secretary of Labor and His Moral Conscience

Linda Gordon, Dorothea Lange: A Life Beyond Limits

Michael Scammell, Koestler: The Literary and Political Odyssey of a Twentieth Century Skeptic

Melvin Urofsky, Louis D. Brandeis: A Life

Kenneth Whyte, The Uncrowned King: The Sensational Rise of William Randolph Hearst.

Thanks to Mary Dudziak for the tip.

Jeffrey R. Young,"Yo, Ho, Ho, and a Digital Scrum," CHE, 21 February, features Adrian Johns's work in Piracy: The Intellectual Property Wars From Gutenberg to Gates.

Sanford Levinson,"So Many Origins," The Book, 23 February, reviews Seth Lipsky's The Citizen's Constitution and Jack Rakove'sThe Annotated U.S. Constitution and Declaration of Independence.

Jonathan Yardley reviews James McGrath Morris's Pulitzer: A Life in Politics, Print, and Power for the Washington Post, 21 February.

Jacopo della Quercia,"The 5 Most Widely Believed WWII Facts (That Are Bullshit)," Cracked.com, 11 February, takes up the bad history challenge. Andrew Nagorski reviews S. M. Plokhy's Yalta: The Price of Peace for the Washington Post, 21 February.