Friday Notes

Simon Blackburn,"Chance Is What We Make It," NY Sun, 20 February, reviews Ross Hamilton's Accident: A Philosophical and Literary History. Hat tip.

Brandon Watson,"Misinterpretation," Siris, 20 February, looks at the experience of the brilliant Neapolitan lawyer, Alphonsus Liguori (1696-1787), who had read a text many times, but didn't know that he'd misread it every time, until it was too late.

Paul Kramer,"The Water Cure," New Yorker, 25 February, revisits the American debate about the use of torture a century ago in the Philippines.

Geoffrey Wheatcroft,"Zion Story," TLS, 20 February, reviews Jacqueline Rose's The Last Resistance, Colin Shindler's The Triumph of Military Zionism: Nationalism and the origins of the Israeli Right, David Goldberg's The Divided Self: Israel and the Jewish psyche today, Victoria Clark's Allies for Armageddon: The Rise of Christian Zionism, Yakov M. Rabkin's A Threat From Within: A century of Jewish opposition to Zionism, and Jimmy Carter's Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid. Hat tip.