Modern History Notes

G. W. Bowersock, "The Tremendous, Ferocious Bentley," NYRB, 24 November, reviews Kristine Louise Haugens's Richard Bentley: Poetry and Enlightenment.

William Feaver reviews Steven Naifeh's and Gregory White Smith's Van Gogh: The Life for the Guardian, 21 December.

Jenna Weissman Joselit, "Blessings," The Book, 21 December, reviews Stephanie Deutsch's You Need a Schoolhouse: Booker T. Washington, Julius Rosenwald, and the Building of Schools for the Segregated South

Arthur Lubow, "An Eye for Genius: The Collections of Gertrude and Leo Stein," Smithsonian, January, previews "The Steins Collect," an exhibit opening at Manhattan's Metropolitan Museum of Art in late February.

James Campbell, "Ernest Hemingway: war hero, big-game hunter, ‘gin-soaked abusive monster'," TLS, 21 December, reviews Sandra Spanier and Robert W. Trogdon, eds., The Letters of Ernest Hemingway, Vol. I, 1907-1922; and Paul Hendrickson's Hemingway's Boat: Everything he loved in life, and lost, 1934–1961.

Nicholas Rankin reviews Taylor Downing's Spies in the Sky: The Secret Battle for Aerial Intelligence During World War II for the Guardian, 16 December.