Modern History Notes

Mary Beth Norton, "Margaret Fuller: Woman of the World," NYT, 20 January, and Melanie Kirkpatrick, "Let Them Be Sea Captains!" WSJ, 21 January, review John Matteson's The Lives of Margaret Fuller: A Biography. Dwight Garner, "All-American Religion or Reason to Worry?" NYT, 24 January, reviews Matthew Bowman's The Mormon People: The Making of an American Faith. Bowman blogs at The Juvenile Instructor.

In the week that Kodak filed for bankruptcy, "A Look at Photos From Kodak's Glory Days (Photos)," Daily Beast, n d, and "Eastman Kodak: 130 years of history – in pictures," Guardian, 19 January.

Sam Leith, "Age of Ideas," Spectator, 21 January, reviews Tony Judt with Timothy Snyder, Thinking the Twentieth Century. Steve Donoghue reviews Peter Englund's The Beauty and the Sorrow: An Intimate History of the First World War for The National, 20 January.

Ron Rosenbaum, "Revisiting The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich," Smithsonian, February, is adapted from Rosenbaum's introduction to a new edition of William L. Shirer's classic. Jonathan Yardley reviews Peter Longerich's Heinrich Himmler: A Life for the Washington Post, 20 January. Peter Clarke, "The Rivals," The Book, 25 January, reviews Peter Caddick-Adams's Monty and Rommel: Parallel Lives.

Thaddeus Russell, "Controlling Guns, Controlling People," Reason, January, reviews Adam Winkler's Gunfight: The Battle Over the Right to Bear Arms in America.

Simon Schama, "No Downers in ‘Downton'," Daily Beast, 16 January, gives "Downton Abby" a thumbs down. "... history's meant to be a bummer, not a stroll down memory lane. Done right, it delivers the tonic of tragedy, not the bromide of romance." "Uptown Downstairs Abbey" spoofs the genre: