Modern History Notes

Our colleague, Dan Todman's"How we remember them: the 1914-18 war today," Open Democracy, 7 November, considers World War I's place in British history.

The Guardian, 10 November, anthologizes some of World War I's most remarkable pieces of writing: Richard Aldington's"Bombardment"; Robert Graves,"The Useless Officer"; Graves,"It's a Queer Time"; Erich Maria Remarque's"All Quiet on the Western Front"; Siegfried Sasson,"'This wild strangeness somehow excited me'"; and Sasson,"Suicide in the Trenches".

Ryan Lizza,"Battle Plans: How Obama Won," New Yorker, 17 November, reports from within the Obama campaign. Lizza may have had to give up plans for a campaign book when he left TNR for the New Yorker. Newsweek's Richard Wolffe apparently has a reporter's book on the campaign in the works; and the Washington Post's David Marannis may also be doing one. You can look forward to an Obama biography by David Garrow.

P. J. O'Rourke,"We Blew It" Weekly Standard, 17 November, laments 28 years of conservative failure in the United States."Let us bend over and kiss our ass goodbye," he begins.