Modern History Notes

Tim Adams, "Simon Schama: 'I'm the inevitable old codger on the dancefloor'," Guardian, 31 July, interviews Schama "about self-doubt, showing off, his Jewish heritage – and cheating death in a helicopter."

Michael Dirda reviews Larrie D. Ferreiro's Measure of the Earth: The Enlightenment Expedition That Reshaped Our World for the Washington Post, 27 July.

Morwenna Ferrier for the Telegraph, 24 May, and Brian Aldiss, "Science fiction at the British Library," TLS, 27 July, review "Out of this World: Science fiction but not as you know it," an exhibit at the British Library, and its catalogue, Mike Ashley's Out of this World: Science fiction but not as you know it. "Out of this World," Guardian, 2 April, is a slide show from the exhibit.

David Greenberg for the Washington Post, 29 July, and Sebastian Mallaby, "Why We Deregulated the Banks," NYT, 29 July, review Jeff Madrick's Age of Greed: The Triumph of Finance and the Decline of America, 1970 to the Present.

James Gleich, "How Google Dominates Us," NYRB, 18 August, reviews Scott Cleland's Search & Destroy: Why You Can't Trust Google Inc., with Ira Brodsky, Douglas Edwards's I'm Feeling Lucky: The Confessions of Google Employee Number 59, Steven Levy's In the Plex: How Google Thinks, Works, and Shapes Our Lives, and Siva Vaidhyanathan's The Googlization of Everything (and Why We Should Worry).