Things Noted Here & There

T. J. Stiles reviews Ron Chernow's Washington: A Life, for the Washington Post, 24 October.

Geoffrey Wheatcroft,"The Voice of Unconventional Wisdom," NYRB, 11 November, reviews Peter Beinart's The Icarus Syndrome: A History of American Hubris and William Pfaff's The Irony of Manifest Destiny: The Tragedy of America's Foreign Policy.

David W. Blight reviews Eric Foner's The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery for the San Francisco Chronicle, 24 October. Thanks to Mary Dudziak at Legal History.

Studiolum,"Man with a cat," Poemas del río Wang, 18 October, introduces us to Sándor Kégl (1862-1920), Hungary's greatest Iranologist.

... already at high school he read all literature in the original – Latin, Greek, German, English, French, Italian – languages, and in the following four years he perfectly acquired Russian, Dutch, Danish, Swedish, Spanish and Portuguese. After the main European languages he turned to the Oriental ones, and mastered Turkish, Persian, Arabic, Hebrew, Tatar and Sanskrit. He kept learning languages all along his life: he learned a number of other Iranian and Indian languages, living and dead Scandinavian dialects, and during WWI he even learned Chuvash and Mordvin from the captive soldiers of the Russian army working on his estates.

See also:"Sandor Kegl, Language Hat, 23 October; and"Ways," Poemas del río Wang, 23 October.

Jonathan Mirsky,"How Reds Smashed Reds," NYRB, 11 November, reviews Andrew G. Walder's Fractured Rebellion: The Beijing Red Guard Movement.

From Michelle Alexander's new book, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incareration in the Age of Colorblindness:"There are more African Americans under correctional control today — in prison or jail, on probation or parole — than were enslaved in 1850, a decade before the Civil War began." Hat tip.