Things Noted Here & There

The Giant's Shoulders #35, the history of science festival, is up at Fëanor's Jost a mon.

Prominent Thai historian Somsak Jeamteerasakul is charged by the Royal Thai Army with lese majeste, a serious accusation in Thailand. If convicted, he could be sentenced to 15 years in prison. For coverage of the case, see AFP, the Bangkok Post, and Prachatai/en.

Mary Beard, "Hannibal at Bay," TLS, 11 May, reviews Robert Garland's Hannibal: Ancients in action and D. S. Levene's Livy on the Hannibalic War.

Sharon Howard at Early Modern Notes announces the creation of Early Modern Commons, an aggregator of early modern history blogging.

Leslie Mitchell, "‘The Dunghill of the Universe'," Literary Review, May, reviews Matthew Parker's The Sugar Barons: Family, Corruption, Empire and War.

Andrea Wulf, "An Artists of the Botanical World," NYT, 13 May, reviews Molly Peacock's The Paper Garden: An Artist (Begins Her Life's Work) at 72.

Daisy Hay, "Holiday of a Lifetime," Literary Review, May, reviews David Ellis's Byron in Geneva: That Summer of 1816.

Gavin Bowd for the Scotsman, 10 May, and Peter Clarke, "Locke, stock and barrel ," FT, 13 May, review Domenico Losurdo's Liberalism: A Counter-History, trans. by Gregory Elliott.

Christopher Hitchens, "The Pacifists and the Trenches," NYT, 13 May, and Jonathan Yardley for the Washington Post, 13 May, review Adam Hochschild's To End All Wars: A Story of Loyalty and Rebellion, 1914-1918.

Kevin Baker, "Lincoln Steffens: Muckraker's Progress," NYT, 13 May, reviews Peter Hartshorn's I Have Seen The Future: A Life of Lincoln Steffens.

Michael Korda reviews Andrew Roberts's The Storm of War: A New History of the Second World War for the Daily Beast, 16 May. Jonathan Gornall, "Bottom line forgets the human cost," The National, 13 May, reviews David Edgerton's Britain's War Machine: Weapons, Resources, and Experts in the Second World War.