Book Reviews
Note: It appears that more and more periodicals are allowing online access to articles only to subscribers, or to people willing to pay a per-story fee. I am continuing to post those stories in case the viewer (a) already subscribes to the periodical, (b) is willing to subscribe or pay a fee for viewing, or (c) wants to find the article at the library.
Note: Book titles are linked to Amazon.com only because Amazon provides thumbnail descriptions of books. Many of these books also are available through the Maine State Library system, either at your local library or through inter-library loan. Click here for the Minerva catalog. At "Select Library," click on =ALL MINERVA LOCATIONS= to check availability throughout the state.
- "Could Politics Be Fairer? Two New Books Say Yes" by Ari Berman, in "The New York Times," Dec 11, 2010, a review of They Don’t Represent Us: Reclaiming Our Democracy by Lawrence Lessig and The Great Democracy: How to Fix Our Politics, Unrig the Economy, and Unite America by Ganesh Sitaraman
- "The Real Meaning of the Brexit Debate" by Ferdinand Mount in "The New York Times Book Review," Nov 8, 2019 (in print as "Paranoid England" on Dec 1, 2019), a review of The Politics of Pain: Postwar England and the Rise of Nationalism by Fintan O'Toole
- "Tinker, Tailor, Writer, Spy" by Tobias Grey in "The New York Times," Oct 15, 2019, a review of Agent Running in the Field: A Novel by John le Carré
- "‘American Nations’ by Colin Woodard, a study of our ‘rival regional cultures’" by Alec MacGillis, a review of American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America by Colin Woodard in "The Washington Post," Nov 18, 2011
- "Life May Differ In Your Region" by Michael Barone, a review of American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America by Colin Woodard in "The Wall Street Journal," Oct 10, 2011
- "American Nations" by Jennifer Miller, a review of American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America by Colin Woodard in "CS Monitor," Nov, 7, 2011
- "Colin Woodard’s ‘Eleven Nations’ Shows a Less Than United States" by Steve Kettmann, a review of American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America by Colin Woodard on "Daily Beast," Nov 5, 2011 (updated July 1, 2017)
- "All the News Is Bad" by Francis Gooding, a review of The Uninhabitable Earth: A Story of the Future (a/k/a The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming) by David Wallace-Wells, in the "London Review of Books," Aug 1, 2019
- "‘Ghosts of Gold Mountain’ and ‘The Chinese & the Iron Road’ Review: Building the Transcontinental Railroad" by Peter Cozzens in "The Wall Street Journal," May 9, 2019 - reviews of Ghosts of Gold Mountain: The Epic Story of the Chinese Who Built the Transcontinental Railroad by Gordon H. Chang and The Chinese and the Iron Road: Building the Transcontinental Railroad by Gordon H. Chang & Shelley Fisher Fishkin
- "Why Did We Fight the Iraq War?" by Andrew J. Bacevich in "The New York Times," April 19, 2019 - a review of Leap of Faith: Hubris, Negligence, and America’s Greatest Foreign Policy Tragedy by Michael J. Mazarr"
- How the Mind-Body Connection Is Rewiring Our Politics" by Jennifer Szalai in "The New York Times," Feb 27, 2019 - a review of Nervous States: Democracy and the Decline of Reason by William Davies
- "‘The Empire and the Five Kings’ Review: The Desert Grows" by Martin Peretz in "The Wall Street Journal," Feb 12, 2019 - a review of The Empire and the Five Kings: America's Abdication and the Fate of the World, by Bernard-Henri Lévy
- "The Perfect Weapon review: David Sanger's urgent warning about cyber warfare" by Raymond Bonner in "The Sydney Morning Herald," Oct 9, 2018, a review of The Perfect Weapon: War, Sabotage, and Fear in the Cyber Age by David E. Sanger
- "Looking Back at the Economic Crash of 2008" by Fareed Zakariah in "The New York Times," Aug 10, 2018, a review of CRASHED: How a Decade of Financial Crises Changed the World by Adam Tooze
- "Toxic History, Poisoned Water: The Story of Flint" by Parul Sehgal in "The New York Times," July 3, 2018, reviews of What the Eyes Don’t See by Mona Hanna-Attisha and The Poisoned City by Anna Clark
- "‘Rise and Kill First’ Shines Light on Israel’s Hidden Assassinations" by Jennifer Szalai in "The New York Times," Jan 31, 2018, a review of Rise and Kill First: The Secret History of Israel's Targeted Assassinations by Ronen Bergman
- "The Catholic Writer Garry Wills Explores the Quran" by Lesley Hazleton in "The New York Times," Dec 20, 2017, a review of What the Qur'an Meant: And Why It Matters by Garry Wills
- "Stalinist Crimes in Ukraine That Resonate Today" by Adam Hochschild, a review of Red Famine: Stalin's War on Ukraine by Anne Applebaum, 2017, in "The New York Times Book Review, Oct 22, 2017
- "The First Totalitarian" by Josef Joffe, a review of Lenin: The Man, the Dictator, and the Master of Terror by Victor Sebestyen, 2017, in "The New York Times Book Review, Oct 22, 2017
- "A Portrait of Stalin in All His Murderous Contradictions" by Mark Atwood Lawrence, a review of Stalin: Waiting for Hitler, 1929-1941, by Stephen Kotkin, 2017, in "The New York Times Book Review, Oct 22, 2017
- "In Masha Gessen's 'The Future is History,' Homo Sovieticus Rises" by Francis Fukuyama, a review of The Future is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia by Masha Gessen, 2017, in "The New York Times Book Review, Oct 22, 2017
- "One Woman's Liberation, Set against the Russian Revolution" by Simon Sebag Montefiore, a review of The Revolution of Marina M. (A Novel) by Janet Finch, 2017, in "The New York Times Book Review, Oct 22, 2017
- "'Riot Days: A Memoir of Punk Protest and Prison Activism" by Sophie Pinkham, a review of Riot Days by Maria Alyokhina, 2017, in "The New York Times Book Review, Oct 22, 2017
- "Anti-Semitism Heralds a Grim Future in This Classic Romanian Novel" by Ken Kalfus, a review of For Two Thousand Years by Mihail Sebastian, 1934, in "The New York Times Book Review, Oct 22, 2017
- "50 Years On, Stories of the Six Day War and What Came Over" by Gal Beckerman in "The New York Times," May 22, 2017 - reviews of six books on the topic
- "Recreating China’s Imagined Empire" by Ian Johnson in "The New York Review of Books," April 20, 2017 (a review of Everything Under the Heavens: How the Past Helps Shape China’s Push for Global Power by Howard W. French)
- "We've Been Before: Jon Meacham on the Literature of Our Discontent" by Jon Meacham in "The New York Times," Jan 17, 2016
- "The Conquerers: A New 19th-Century History Focuses on American Imperialism" by Brenda Wineapple in "The New York Times," Dec 16, 2016 (a review of A Nation Without Borders: The United States and Its World in an Age of Civil Wars, 1830-1910 by Steven Hahn)
- "Two New Books Spotlight the History and Consequences of the Suez Crisis," (book review of Ike's Gamble: America’s Rise to Dominance in the Middle East by Michael Doran, reviewed by David Frum, and book review of Blood and Sand: Suez, Hungary, and Eisenhower’s Campaign for Peace by Alex von Tunzelmann, reviewed by Evan Thomas) in "The New York Times," Oct 12, 2016
- "Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging – review" by Joanna Bourke in "The Guardian," June 26, 2016 (link to book)
- "A Stark Nuclear Warning" by Jerry Brown in "The New York Review of Books," July 14, 2016 (a review of My Journey at the Nuclear Brink by William J. Perry)
- 'The Invention of Russia' Examines the Post-Soviet Path" by Serge Schmemann in "The New York Times," July 13, 2016
- "Eric Fair's 'Consequence,' a Memoir by a Former Abu Ghraib Interrogator" by Michiko Kakutani in "The New York Times," April 4, 2015
- "Peter Bergen's 'United States of Jihad' Surveys Homegrown Terrorism" by Michiko Kakutani in "The New York Times," Jan 25, 2016
- "Generation Putin: What to Expect From Russia’s Future Leaders" by Sarah E. Mendelson in "Foreign Affairs," Jan/Feb 2015, a review of No Illusions: The Voices of Russia’s Future Leaders by Ellen Mickiewicz
- "The Mystery of ISIS" by Anonymous in "The New York Review of Books," Aug 13, 2015, a review of ISIS: Inside the Army of Terror by Michael Weiss & Hassan Hassan and ISIS: The State of Terror by Jessica Stern and J.M. Berger
- "Hugh Thomas’s ‘World Without End: Spain, Philip II, and the First Global Empire’" by Nigel Cliff in "The New York Times," Aug 7, 2015
- "Bikinis Not Burqas" a review by Bari Weiss of "Headscarves and Hymens: Why the Middle East Needs a Sexual Revolution" by Mona Eltahawy in "The Wall Street Journal," April 27, 2015
- "College Disrupted: The Great Unbundling of Higher Education by Ryan Craig and The End of College: Creating the Future of Learning and the University of Everywhere by Kevin Carey" by Janet Napolitano in "The Washington Post," March 15, 2015
- "‘Guantánamo Diary,’ by Mohamedou Ould Slahi" by Mark Danner, in "The New York Times," Jan 20, 2015
- "The Places in Between: The Struggle to Define Indonesia" by Pankaj Mishra in "The New Yorker," Aug 4, 2014, a review of Indonesia, Etc.: Exploring the Improbable Nation by Elizabeth Pisani
- "Chris Hayes on the Twilight of the Elites and the End of Meritocracy" a book review by Julian Brookes in "RollingStone," July 11, 2012
- "Chris Hayes' 'Twilight of the Elites'," a book review by Susan Gardener for "Daily Kos," June 23, 2013
- "Chris Hayes' Twilight of the Elites: A Review" by Alexis Goldstein on "truthout," June 13, 2012
- "The Cult of Smartness: How Meritocracy Is Failing America," a review of Chris Hayes' "Twilight of the Elites" by Conor Friedersdorf in "The Atlantic," June 12, 2012
- "Three Divergent Visions of Our Future Under Climate Change" a review by Nathaniel Rich of The Human Age: The World Shaped by Us by Diane Ackerman in "The New York Times," Sept 22, 2014
- "7 Paratroopers and Paths They Took Through an Israel at a Crossroads," a book review by Ethan Bronner of Like Dreamers by Yossi Klein Halevi in "The New York Times," Sept 25, 2013
- "Book review: The Social Conquest of Earth, By Edward O Wilson" by Peter Forbes in "The Independent" (UK), Aug 30, 2013
- "Killing Machine," a book review by Fred Kaplan of The Way of the Knife: The CIA, a Secret Army, and a War at the Ends of the Earth by Mark Mazzetti in "The New York Times," May 10, 2013
- "Closed Kingdom," a book review by Michael J. Totten of On Saudia Arabia: Its People, Past, Religion, Fault Lines — and Future by Karen Elliott House in "The New York Times," Nov 16, 2012
- "A Fig Leaf Is Dropped in Islamic Societies," a book review by Janet Maslin of Sex and the Citadel: Intimate Life in a Changing Arab World by Shereen El Feki in "The New York Times," April 7, 2013