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Usually Reliable Sources
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Worth Reading (Fiction)
- Mike Resnick: A Club in Montmartre: An Encounter with Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec
Something different from this SF great's facile pen: An historical novel about Toulouse-Lautrec and the creation of his famous Moulin Rouge poster, seen from the point of view of a waif sheltered by the troubled artist. One in a series called Art Encounters, aimed at YA's but instructive and entertaining for anyone. (*****) - Terry Pratchett: A Hat Full of Sky
Ostensible children's book that will also appeal to adults. The education of a young witch — far more "realistic" than Harry Potter. (*****) - Harry Turtledove: After the Downfall
Magically plucked from Berlin in 1945, a Nazi soldier finds himself in a parallel world that challenges his cultural assumptions. A well delineated picture of conflict between widely disparate civilizations, with a reminder that backwardness is not the same as stupidity. (****) - Connie Willis: All Seated on the Ground
Connie Willis's annual Christmas story; a comedy about alien visitors who act much like annoyed maiden aunts. Making contact is a twin triumph of civility and true love. The story is also a good test of your knowledge of Christmas carols. 2008 Best Novella Hugo Award nominee. (*****) - Iain Pears: An Instance of the Fingerpost
Mystery set in Restoration England. The murder of an Oxford don is recounted from four widely different viewpoints. Heavy on period detail. Metamorphoses into theological fantasy at the end, which may displease some readers. (****) - Neil Gaiman: Anansi Boys
Calling this comic novel a "sequel" to American Gods conveys the wrong impression. Anansi Boys is smaller in scope, funnier and more humane, though it likewise tells a story of dwindling gods adrift in the contemporary world. Anti-hero "Spider" steals the show and begs to be played by Will Smith in the movie version. (*****) - Neal Stephenson: Anathem
If you have not a smidgen of interest in how Platonic philosophy relates to the "many worlds" version of quantum mechanics, you still may like this novel, though you'll probably wish that the characters talked less. Persevere. After a slow start, the story grows compelling, and the intellectual dialogues turn out not to be digressions. (*****) - E. Viollet-Le-Duc: Annals of a Fortress: Twenty-Two Centuries of Siege Warfare
The history of a fictional French fortress from the 4th Century B.C. through the Napoleonic Wars, featuring detailed accounts of seven sieges. (****) - Richard Calder: Babylon
A teenage girl in an alternative Victorian England, where the cult of Ishtar remains a living force, escapes her unhappy home for the fantastic world of "Babylon". She is to be trained as a sacred whore but is soon caught up in a secret war between the Illuminati, who dominate Earth, and their vicious enemies, the "Black Order". Her ultimate fate is bizarre indeed. (****) - Peter Watts: Blindsight
The exploration of a giant alien artifact twists that familiar subgenre with a plausible, though ultimately unconvincing, argument that human self-awareness is a deleterious evolutionary accident. Characters include a vampire, a linguist with multiple personalities, a couple of cyborgs and a narrator whose special skill is absence of empathy. 2007 Hugo Award nominee (****) - James Patrick Kelly: Burn
In a galaxy-spanning future, the planet Walden is a self-proclaimed "paradise" founded on simplicity and rejection of high technology. It also faces the problems of terrorism and disillusion, recounted through the story of a firefighter with a soul-corroding secret. A well-wrought picture of a distinctly odd society, with a plot whose moral dilemmas evade pat answers. Nominated for the Best Novella Hugo Award for 2006. (*****) - Tobias S. Buckell: Crystal Rain
An inventive tale of a human colony isolated from galactic civilization, split between warring cultures and caught up in a vast conflict between alien races. Characters include an amnesiac ex-hero who wants to spend a peaceful retirement with his family, a quasi-human killing machine, a spy desperate to betray his masters, and a harried female dictator. Deserving of Hugo consideration. (****) - Charles L. Harness: Cybele, With Bluebonnets
A touching, understated fantasy featuring Depression era Texas, youthful romance, chemistry, a ghost and love beyond death. (****) - Connie Willis: D.A.
Connie Willis sends up overfamiliar "space academy" stories with this one about the only girl on Earth who has no desire to enroll. Then she is informed that her "application" has been accepted. Is it a weird mistake? A devious plot? Can she get out? Funny, though the moral is rather pat. (*****) - Tim Powers: Declare: A Novel
An intricate Cold War fantasy that seems so plausible that one wonders whether it is the true story of why the Soviet Union rose and collapsed. (*****) - Dan Simmons: Drood: A Novel
Mysterious events in the life of Charles Dickens, as told by his friend and rival Wilkie Collins. The plot involves involves mesmerism, violent deaths, an ancient Egyptian cult, specters, brain-eating scarabs, a Wilkie doppelgänger, and a gigantic conflagration beneath the streets of London. Or does it? The opium-addled Collins is the exemplar of the doubtfully reliable narrator. (*****) - Michael Flynn: Eifelheim
A double narrative: the appearance of shipwrecked aliens in a 14th Century German village and the 21st Century discovery of the event. The interaction between a brilliant human theologian and rather ordinary denizens of an advanced civilization challenges chronologically based prejudices. 2007 Hugo Award nominee (*****) - John Derbyshire: Fire from the Sun
Three-decker novel about the contrasting, intersecting lives of a Chinese boy and girl, born in the same mainland village and brought to America by force of circumstances. Romantic and compelling. (****) - Terry Pratchett: Going Postal
A small-time con man must choose between death and the Ankh-Morpork post office - and takes the more dangerous option. Big business, fraud, low-tech hacking, young love and general hilarity. Pratchett's best novel since Pyramids. (*****) - Harry Turtledove: Gunpowder Empire
Debut of a juvenile series set in parallel worlds. 22nd century teen siblings, trapped without adult aid in a besieged city, must cope with the bizarre (to them) customs and prejudices of a never-fallen Roman Empire. [Rating is for 11-17 year olds; adults may find the book too didactic and unsubtle for their tastes.] (*****) - Rodney Bolt: History Play : The Lives and Afterlife of Christopher Marlowe
A pseudo-history springing from the premise that Shakespeare's flashy predecessor survived the famous Deptford brawl and fled to the continent, where he secretly wrote almost all of the Bard's works. A clever, tongue-in-cheek reworking of literary history, with the bonus of vividly recreating the milieu shared by many real Elizabethan exiles. (****) - Kathleen Ann Goonan: In War Times
The author builds this multiple universes story around her father's World War II diary, which is at least as interesting as the energetic, but not wholly coherent, main plot. The ending is a JFK assassination theory with a Ron Paulian(!) twist. Also included is more than I wanted to read about the WWII jazz scene. Overall, a book I would have liked to like better and that others may enjoy vastly. (****) - Connie Willis: Inside Job
The editor of a paranormal-skeptic magazine and his beautiful assistant encounter a most unlikely ghost: ueber-skeptic H. L. Mencken. Connie Willis in her lightest, funniest vein. Nominated for the Best Novella Hugo Award for 2006. (*****) - Shauna Roberts: Like Mayflies in a Stream
The epic of Gilgamesh, retold with the mythical elements kept to a minimum and an emphasis on how unpleasant it can be to live in the vicinity of a legendary hero. The heroine is well done: a woman who shapes her own life without being an anachronistic proto-feminist. The author's attention to historical and archaeological data is commendable. (****) - Alfred Duggan: Lord Geoffrey's Fancy
Perhaps the finest book of one of England's finest historical novelists. The setting is 13th Century Greece, where Crusaders fought each other and the shattered Byzantine Empire. The history is accurate, the writing graceful and the characters not merely modern people in fancy dress. (*****) - Joe Haldeman: Marsbound
Martian colonies are an old subject for SF, and this novel is in some ways an old-fashioned treatment, with the traditional elements of young settler, contact with Martians, and an alien menace. The plot and characters are so well done, however, that the story is fresh. The flavor is Heinleinesque, but the heroine is no Podkayne of Mars. (*****) - Terry Pratchett: Nation
The first non-Discworld Pratchett in decades has the familiar mix of serious plotting and underlying farce, as an iconoclastic Polynesian lad and a properly raised Victorian lass carry on through tsunami, plague, shipwreck, pigs, pantaloon birds, gods, grandparents and cannibals. A tribute to courage in the face of physical and metaphysical ordeals - and funny, too! (*****) - Tim Powers: On Stranger Tides
The classic tale of piracy and the supernatural. What the Pirates of the Caribbean movies should have been. (*****) - H. N. Turteltaub [Harry Turtledove]: Over the Wine-Dark Sea
First in a series of O'Brian-like nautical adventures set in the tumultuous times following the death of Alexander the Great. The Aubrey and Maturin are merchant cousins, devil-may-care Menedemos and intellectual Sostratos, who roam the Mediterranean looking for profit and girls, while avoiding storms, pirates and jealous husbands. Meandering plot but great fun. (*****) - Robert Ferrigno: Prayers for the Assassin
A combination of suspense novel and a plausible vision of America after a Moslem takeover. It loses a star only because defeating the super-villain is just a trifle too easy. Review. (****) - Vernor Vinge: Rainbows End: A Novel With One Foot In The Future
In a near future in which every crank can deploy WMD's that make contemporary Islamofascists look like schoolboys, a poet who has lost his talent and his spunky granddaughter find themselves up against a conspiracy to solve the world's problems by eliminating free will. The careful extrapolation is mixed with some silly ideas and burdened with a sentimental Alzheimer's recovery story. 2007 Hugo Award nominee (****) - Simon Montefiore: Sashenka: A Novel
Both grim and funny, this historical novel peers into the inner world of an upper class Russian girl turned loyal Bolshevik, highlighting her youthful fling at revolution-making in Petrograd, her fall from grace under Stalin, and an historian's effort, after the end of communism, to ascertain her fate. (*****) - Robert Ferrigno: Sins of the Assassin
The middle volume of a trilogy about a near-future, Moslem-dominated U.S. Most of the action takes place in the independent "Bible Belt", where resistance to Islamic domination is sometimes heroic and sometimes pathological. More of a pure thriller than its predecessor but good on its own terms (****) - Charles W. Chesnutt: Stories, Novels, and Essays (Library of America, 131)
Fiction and essays by a black American writer who deserves a wider audience. (****) - Joe Haldeman: The Accidental Time Machine
Maybe all the variations on time travel are played out, but Joe Haldeman makes the old tropes enjoyable in this story of a down-on-his-luck grad student who invents a time machine without really trying. The resolution of the ensuing paradoxes comes very near to being credible. (****) - David Selbourne: The City of Light
Supposedly the journal of Jewish merchant who visited China c. 1270, this historical novel uses an encounter between Judaism and medieval China as a springboard for a lightly disguised examination of contemporary political and moral issues. Since Selbourne is a fascinating thinker, his characters' thoughts are fascinating, too. (****) - Matthew Pearl: The Dante Club
Literary mystery involving Boston's post-Civil War intellectual elite in a series of atrocious murders inspired by Dante's Divine Comedy. Weak as a whodunit, strong on atmosphere. (****) - H.F.M. Prescott: The Man on a Donkey
Set during the Pilgrimage of Grace, this is the rare historical novel that captures the mindset of the actors. The hero, Robert Aske, was martyred in a way that makes burning at the stake look merciful. (*****) - Harry Turtledove: The Man with the Iron Heart
Can the U.S. maintain its resolve against a defeated enemy's terrorist campaign? Imagining a post-World War II Nazi insurgency, Harry Turtledove puts this question into a new context. As Reinhard von Heydrich's "werewolves" devastate Germany, war-weary Americans call for withdrawal, regardless of the consequences. (*****) - H. N. Turteltaub [Harry Turtledove]: The Sacred Land
Third volume in a series of seafaring adventures set in the Hellenistic era. Ill-matched merchant cousins Menedemos and Sostratos seek profit in exotic Tyre and Jerusalem. (*****) - Steven E. Plaut: The Scout
Short novel based on the true story of an Arab scout in Israeli service. (****) - Jasper Fforde: The Well of Lost Plots
Thursday Next continues her hectic adventures in a universe where books come alive, literally. Newcomers should start with The Eyre Affair (****) - Clark Ashton Smith: The White Sybil and Other Stories
A slim, representative sampling of Ashton Smith's weird, richly worded fiction. The best pieces are highly readable today; the less good are at least entertaining and will enhance the reader's vocabulary. (****) - Tim Powers: Three Days to Never: A Novel
Time travel, ghosts, Albert Einstein's daughter, ancient conspiracies, a blind assassin, a Mossad agent who will die if he hears the telephone ring: With his customary bravura and skill, Tim Powers fashions a coherent and exciting story out of a strange assortment of materials. (*****) - Terry Pratchett: Thud!
After 30 books, one might fear that Discworld is in danger of fatigue. Au contraire, this witty, vigorous tale of the culmination of an ages-old conflict between dwarfs and trolls, with Sam Vimes and Ankh-Morpork in the middle, is one of the strongest volumes yet. (*****) - Jack McDevitt: Time Travelers Never Die
A pleasant, though insubstantial, addition to an overcrowded subgenre. After inheriting a time machine, an aimless young man and his friend play temporal tourists. Not a whole lot ensues, and there are some silly mistakes (such as Greeks wearing togas). Still, it goes down smoothly, and the inevitable paradoxes are handled quite well. (****) - Theodore Odrach: Wave of Terror
Based on the author's experiences when the Soviet Union occupied his homeland after the Stalin-Hitler Pact, this book melds Chekov and Solzhenitsyn. By stages, the isolated folk of the Pripyet Marshes learn that there are worse masters than their former Polish overlords. (*****)
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Saturday, September 11, 2021
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Hillary Clinton won in 2016, but not as expected. Her narrow victory sparks intrigue, catching a callow reporter in a fast spinning news cycle.
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Worth Reading (Non-Fiction)
- Sean McMeekin: Stalin's War: A New History of World War II
World War II as seen through the eyes of the leader who was most successful in attaining his objectives, despite starting the war with severe weaknesses and a catastrophic defeat. The author makes a particular point of how the U.S. and U.K. naively lavished aid on the USSR without seeking any return for their bounty. (*****) - Thomas Sowell: Knowledge and Decisions
A classic exposition of how voluntary interactions effectively transmit to decision makers the knowledge that they need to make optimal decisions. Few books do a better job of exploding the fallacies of central planning and control. (*****) - Laurent Murawiec: The Mind of Jihad
An exploration of the ideological and sociological roots of the cult of death that has grown up within (but is not entirely of) Islam. One of the half dozen books that anyone who wishes to understand our enemies ought to read and ponder. (*****) - John Emsley: Molecules of Murder: Criminal Molecules and Classic Cases
Murderers and their poisons - some commonplace, some exotic. But don't try these at home! (****) - Robert Drury: The Last Stand of Fox Company: A True Story of U.S. Marines in Combat
An hour-by-hour account of a Korean War Thermopylae. In December 1950, single Marine company holds back five battalions of Chinese and plays a key role in saving the overextended U.N. forces from destruction. (*****) - Bernard Lewis & Butzie Ellis Churchill: Islam: The Religion and the People
A nonpolemical overview of Islam, co-written by one of the leading Western authorities. Valuable as a corrective to misleading analogies with Christianity and for its analysis of how contact with the West has altered Moslem ideas and attitudes. (****) - Guy Sorman: Empire of Lies: The Truth About China in the Twenty-First Century
The author traveled through mainland China for a year, talking to religious and political dissenters and to the 80 percent of the population that has been left out of the "Chinese miracle". He paints a sobering, though anecdotal, picture of poverty, oppression, corruption and deceit, mostly ignored by a complaisant West. (****) - Robert G. Hoyland: Seeing Islam as Others Saw It: A Survey and Evaluation of Christian, Jewish and Zoroastrian Writings on Early Islam
Much of the conventional picture of Islam's first century has little basis in the evidence. This exhaustive survey uses non-Moslem writings of the 7th and 8th Centuries to illuminate this dim period, for which contemporary Moslem sources are rare and later accounts are often anachronistic. (*****) - Michael Yon: Moment of Truth in Iraq: How a New 'Greatest Generation' of American Soldiers is Turning Defeat and Disaster into Victory and Hope
While mainstream reporters keep their distance, Michael Yon covers the Iraqi campaign at close quarters. This book is his account on how an almost-lost war turned into a likely victory for the forces of civilization. (*****) - Douglas J. Feith: War and Decision: Inside the Pentagon at the Dawn of the War on Terrorism
The best account yet of the opening years of the War on Terror, with an insider's analysis of its successes and setbacks. The author, who was the number three man at the Defense Department from 2001 through 2005, supports his narrative with contemporary notes and declassified documents, distinguishing it from the typical Washington memoir. (*****) - Jonah Goldberg: Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, From Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning
Except for the lively writing, this unearthing of the historical and intellectual links between American progressives and European fascists could be an academic study. "Progressive" has positive connotations for most people; here is why it shouldn't. (*****) - Andrew Rippin: Muslims: Their Religious Beliefs and Practices
An expert overview of the history, teachings and practice of Islam, with attention to the full spectrum of Moslem beliefs and only a minimum of academic jargon. Usefully dispels to myth that Islam emerged "in the full light of history" and has changed little since the 7th Century, though the author may be too optimistic about the prospects for moderates and modernizers. (*****) - Von Hardesty & Gene Eisman: Epic Rivalry: The Inside Story of the Soviet and American Space Race
The history of the Space Race through the first lunar landing, covering both the American and the Soviet space programs and showing why the USSR's early triumphs bore so little fruit. Real space buffs will find little that is new; for others, this is one of the best accounts available. (****) - Tara Ross & Joseph C. Smith, Jr.: Under God: George Washington and the Question of Church and State
Thomas Jefferson wasn't the only Founding Father with ideas about church-state relations. This study examines the views of George Washington, which, the authors argue, furnish more accurate insight into the meaning of the First Amendment. Included are all of the first President's significant statements about the role of religion in public life. (*****) - David Bellavia: House to House
An infantryman's searing memoir of the battle for Fallujah in November 2004, a crucial, hard-fought victory over al-Qa'eda and its allies. Whatever history thinks about the war in Iraq, this book is a future classic of military literature. (*****) - Philip Sabin: Lost Battles: Reconstructing the Great Clashes of the Ancient World
A military historian tries to improve our picture of ancient battles by devising a wargame to reconstruct them. With the documentary sources mined to exhaustion, this approach is a new way to try to understand what really happened. Included are a move-by-move "replay" of Cannae and data for applying the model to 35 other battles. (*****) - Jaroslav Pelikan: Whose Bible Is It?: A Short History of the Scriptures
One of the foremost living church historians traces the development of the Biblical text and how Christians and Jews have read it over the centuries. A first rate example of scholarly popularization. (*****) - Michael Schmidt: The First Poets
Biographies of the major poets of ancient Greece, some enveloped in legends (e. g., Orpheus and Homer), some well-rounded figures, many barely knowable outside their verse. While separating fact from fiction is not the author's first priority, he presents a good picture of how the Muses' servants worked and what they accomplished. (****) - Amity Shlaes: The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression
A breezy, episodic picture of the New Deal, from its prehistory in progressive pipe dreaming through FDR's reelection in 1940. The author thinks that deflation, high taxes, erratic policy experimentation, class warfare and overregulation choked off recovery. That's probably right, but her approach is unanalytical and won't undermine the Left's satisfaction with eight years of stagnation. (****) - Christopher Clark: Iron Kingdom: The Rise and Downfall of Prussia, 1600-1947
An account of both the historical kingdom of Brandenburg-Prussia and the idea of "Prussianism". A central theme is that both were more varied than the popular conception. The brief heyday of militarism, repression and junker ascendancy must be balanced against the Prussian Enlightenment, Pietism and a surprising role as a bulwark of democracy during the Weimar Republic. A touch of academic bafflegab is annoying but not fatal. (****) - Constantine Pleshakov: Stalin's Folly: The Tragic First Ten Days of WWII on the Eastern Front
Portrays Stalin's blindly optimistic planning for the war against Hitler and inept reaction to the unexpected German assault, using material gathered during the brief opening of the Soviet archives. The author concludes that the pre-war purges instilled such fear of the vozhd that no one dared oppose his irrational strategy. Ironically, the same fear saved the regime from overthrow, so that it survived at the cost of immense damage to the hapless population. (*****) - William E. Odom: The Collapse of the Soviet Military
How a huge military establishment, prepped for offensive war in behalf of Marxism-Leninism, disintegrated in just a few years. The author attributes the collapse to perestroika, which, while incapable of truly reforming communism, undermined the military's ideology and the public's tolerance for the appalling conditions of service. The failure of the 1991 putsch, the last gasp effort to restore the old regime, was the outcome of this process of decay. (****) - Charles Allen: God's Terrorists: The Wahhabi Cult And the Hidden Roots of Modern Jihad
Islamofascism didn't emerge from nowhere on 9/11. It continues a tradition of violent jihad against everyone, including mainstream Moslems, who refuses to bow to a pseudo-primitivist interpretation of Islam. This book traces, albeit with many digressions, the history of the Wahhabi and Salafist sects, with special emphasis on their impact in what is now Pakistan and on their spectacular growth in the 20th Century. They may be the future of Islam, in which case a long, bitter "clash of civilizations" is scarcely avoidable. (****) - Stanley Wells: Shakespeare and Co.: Christopher Marlowe, Thomas Dekker, Ben Jonson, Thomas Middleton, John Fletcher and the Other Players in His Story
Shakespeare was far from the only Elizabethan dramatist. One of the grand old men of Shakespearean studies here offers appreciations of his contemporaries, including Jonson, Marlowe, Kyd, Dekker, Middleton, Fletcher and Webster - all notable dramatists in their own right. I doubt that we'll see The Alchemist or The Jew of Malta on Broadway soon, but Professor Wells makes a good case for regretting those losses to the repertory. (****) - Lynne Olson: Troublesome Young Men: The Rebels Who Brought Churchill to Power and Helped Save England
The story told in this book - how those who warned against an evil, aggressive ideology were scorned as warmongers and alarmists - has obvious contemporary resonance. I recommend it for those who are depressed by the self-inflicted blindness of the MSM and much of the electorate. Viewed as an historical work, it is well-written, colorful but not very deep, often glossing over the principles at stake in favor of retailing gossip. (****) - Josiah Osgood: Caesar's Legacy: Civil War and the Emergence of the Roman Empire
How did ordinary Romans feel about the prolonged civil war, sometimes hot and sometimes cold, among the members of the Second Triumvirate? This work reassembles the shards of chronicles, inscriptions and poetry to offer an well-rounded interpretation. Some prior knowledge of the period is required. (*****) - David M. Unwin: The Pterosaurs: From Deep Time
A leading expert on the air dwellers of the Mesozoic Era traces their evolution and explains their bizarre anatomy and physiology in terms comprehensible to non-experts. (*****) - Jeffrey Herf: The Jewish Enemy: Nazi Propaganda during World War II and the Holocaust
This detailed account of the Nazi regime's anti-Jewish propaganda argues that it reflected sincere paranoid beliefs rather than cynical manipulation of traditional bigotry. By failing to take seriously the repeated calls for Jewish "extermination", the outside world (and probably many Germans, though the author barely considers this possibility) missed blatant evidence of the Holocaust. The most chilling book of the year. (*****) - Wilfred Cantwell Smith: Islam in Modern History
Though first published 50 years ago, this examination of Islam's efforts to reject or adjust to modernity is more insightful than most recent commentary. It includes a superlative analysis of the fundamental ways in which traditional Islamic thought differs from both Judaeo-Christian and Enlightenment concepts and shows the full extent of the challenge that Moslem modernizers face. (*****) - Andrew Lintott: The Constitution of the Roman Republic
This analysis of how the Roman Republic was governed avoids undue theorizing about abstract concepts like the nature of imperium and disputes the common notion that the popular elements of the Roman political system were a fraud. (****) - Mark Steyn: America Alone: The End of the World as We Know It
As Europe's non-Moslem population plummets, and its cultural self-confidence plummets even faster, America faces a long-term challenge from medieval obscurantists who will soon carry atomic weapons. Mark Steyn makes a valiant attempt to warn about the future that is almost upon us. (*****) - Melanie Phillips: Londonistan
In the years before 9/11, London became a center of Isalmic fascism, thanks to British officialdom's confidence that Moslem beneficiaries of the welfare state would never turn on their benefactors, whatever they might do to foreigners. The London train bombings showed up the naivete of that attitude but didn't expunge it. Melanie Phillips shows how Britain, particularly the British Left, continues to appease, even collaborate with, the enemies of civilization. (*****) - Tom D. Dillehay: The Settlement of the Americas: A New Prehistory
A leading authority on South American archaeology reviews, in sometimes exhausting detail, what is known about the earliest human presence in the New World, focusing on the southern continent. Much remains obscure and perplexing. While the author argues for his own theories, he does not try to impose unwarranted certainties. (****) - Martin Meredith: The Fate of Africa: From the Hopes of Freedom to the Heart of Despair
Again and again, bright hopes for African countries have been undermined by endemic corruption and the megalomania of "Big Men", recently compounded by the scourge of AIDS. While not analytical, this account by a veteran reporter tells the depressing story is grim but fair-minded detail. (****) - Nicholas Wade: Before the Dawn : Recovering the Lost History of Our Ancestors
A journalist's overview of the information about human prehistory brought to light by DNA research. The author's enthusiasm for finding genetic bases for everything sometimes leads to ill-supported guesswork, but he is generally level headed and has much better documentation than most popularizers. (****) - Andre Gerolymatos: The Balkan Wars: Conquest, Revolution, and Retribution from the Ottoman Era to the Twentieth Century and Beyond
An episodic account of Balkan conflicts from the Battle of Kosovo (1389) through the Second Balkan War (1913). While emphasizing the dramatic and sometimes drawing on dubious sources, the book gives a sense of how the past appears to today's inhabitants of the region. (***) - Peter Heather: The Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History of Rome and the Barbarians
A narrative of the last century of the Western Roman Empire from the "Late Antiquity" point of view, according to which accident played a larger role in the barbarian triumph than institutional failure or economic crisis. As an account of politics and warfare, the book is first rate, but neglect of culture and (especially) religion makes it one-sided. An editor was desperately needed to weed out slang, clichés and over-cute parallels to the 21st century. (****) - Jung Chang & Jon Halliday: Mao : The Unknown Story
A relentless exposé of one of history's great monsters, whose self-centered ambition destroyed tens of millions of people. China will never recover fully until it renounces Mao's tyrannical legacy, a project that, alas, is far from being completed. The book's only weaknesses are occasional naivete about geopolitics and a prose style that reads like a literal translation from Chinese. (*****) - Charles Spencer: Blenheim: Battle for Europe
An energetic history of the campaign of 1704, which destroyed Louis XVI's prospects for dominating Europe. The viewpoint is strongly partisan (anti-French, pro-Marlborough), which leads to some simplification and distortion, but the book is excellent as an overview of an historical turning point. (****) - Arthur Cotterell: Chariot : The Astounding Rise and Fall of the World's First War Machine
The military use of the chariot is a topic badly in need of a definitive analysis. This book isn't it. The author's theory, that chariots were primarily platforms for archery, may be correct but is advanced without a solid foundation of evidence. The discussion is digressive and overly credulous of literary and semi-historical sources, while scanting archeology. On the positive side, the materials gathered here are full of intrinsic interest. (***) - Toby Wilkinson: Genesis of the Pharaohs
"Gift of the Nile" may be a misnomer. A leading expert on Egyptian prehistory argues that the civilization of the Pharoahs originated on the savannahs (now deserts) to the east of the river. Well written and accessible, though oversimplified on occasion. (****) - N. A. M. Rodger: The Safeguard of the Sea: A Naval History of Britain 660-1649
This account of 1,000 years of English, Scottish, Irish and Welsh naval history is full of surprises, showing how Anglo-Saxon seapower fell apart under the Normans and revived only sporadically until Henry VIII, Elizabeth and (surprisingly) Charles I laid the foundations for the Royal Navy. Sprightly writing, a plethora of facts and no fear of shattering myths. (*****) - J. E. Lendon: Soldiers and Ghosts : A History of Battle in Classical Antiquity
A deftly argued challenge to accounts of ancient military history that overlook the influence of cultural traditions on the way that wars were fought. (*****) - Scott McCrea: The Case for Shakespeare : The End of the Authorship Question
A solid review of the evidence for the identity of the English language's greatest writer. Review (*****) - G. Edward White: Alger Hiss's Looking-Glass Wars: The Covert Life of a Soviet Spy
Credible, though necessarily speculative analysis of why Alger Hiss persisted in denying his role as a Soviet spy and why so many leftists remain determined to believe him despite overwhelming proof of his guilt. The author's summary of the case and the evidence is unusually lucid. (*****) - Frank E. & Fritzie P. Manuel: Utopian Thought in the Western World
A detailed study of utopias and the psychology of their inventors from Thomas More through Herbert Marcuse. The authors brilliantly trace the various strains of utopian thought, with ample attention to significant though now neglected figures. (*****) - Lynn Struve: Voices from the Ming-Qing Cataclysm: China in Tigers' Jaws
These first hand accounts of the Manchu invasion of China, many of them written by ordinary people whose lives were shattered by the turmoil, remind us that we do not live in the worst of times. (*****) - John H. Fund: Stealing Elections: How Voter Fraud Threatens Our Democracy
Essential, urgent reading for all citizens who want every genuine vote to count. (*****) - N. B. Aitchison: Macbeth: Man and Myth
An historian brings together the few facts and many fantasies about Scotland's most famous King. (****) - Burton Watson: Early Chinese Literature
Incisive survey of the genres and principal works of the Chou and Early Han dynasties. (*****) - Michael Hicks: Richard III
Not a biography but a study of the shaping of Richard's reputation. Lucid and informative but naive in places and distinctly hostile to its subject. (***) - Henry Kamen: The Duke of Alba
This compact life of Philip II's premier general highlights his efficiency and loyalty without excusing his brutality and arrogance. (****) - Jonathan M. House: Combined Arms Warfare in the Twentieth Century
Civilian version of well-regarded military textbook surveying the interaction of technology and doctrine from World War I through the mid 1990's. (****) - Donald E. Queller & Thomas F. Madden: The Fourth Crusade: The Conquest of Constantinople
Balanced account of one of history's great crimes, blaming the crusaders' looting of Christendom's greatest city more on miscalculation than malice. (*****) - Justin Phillips: C. S. Lewis at the BBC: Messages of Hope in the Darkness of War
The often amusing story of Lewis' wartime radio broadcasts, which made him the world's best-known Christian controversialist. (****) - Hugh Elton: Warfare in Roman Europe, AD 350-425
Argues that the later Roman army was more successful and less barbarian than traditionally assumed. (****) - Adrian Keith Goldsworthy: The Roman Army at War: 100 BC-AD 200
An attempt, partially frustrated by shortage of data, to look at the Roman army from the bottom-up, emphasizing the realities of combat rather than institutional features. (****) - Ibn Warraq: The Quest for the Historical Muhammad
Essays by non-Moslem scholars on the dubious historicity of the traditional account of Mohammed's life and teaching. (****) - Ibn Warraq: The Origins of the Koran: Classic Essays on Islam's Holy Book
Scholarly, non-Moslem studies of the Islamic holy book. Occasionally too dense for lay readers. (****) - Michael Cook: The Koran: A Very Short Introduction
Written without animus, this slim guide explains what the Koran says and how Moslems read it. (*****) - Richard J. Evans: The Coming of the Third Reich
The collapse of the Weimar Republic, 1919-1933. Excellent on the cultural and social roots of the Far Right's ascendancy, less successful as a narrative history. (****) - Michael Oren: Six Days of War: June 1967 and the Making of the Modern Middle East
The definitive account of the most crucial war in Israel's modern history. (*****) - Ronald Reagan: Reagan, In His Own Hand: The Writings of Ronald Reagan That Reveal His Revolutionary Vision for America
Ronald Reagan was a compulsive writer. This volume collects the surviving scripts for his 1970's radio broadcasts, showing the wide range of his ideas and basic thoughtfulness of his opinions. (*****) - Andrew Gurr: Playgoing in Shakespeare's London
Study of the characteristics of Shakespeare's audience and the experience of theater going in his day. Essential for students of theatrical history. (*****) - Susan Rose: Medieval Naval Warfare, 1000-1500
Short, useful survey of an obscure aspect of military history. (****) - Stephen Webb: If the Universe Is Teeming with Aliens... Where Is Everybody? Fifty Solutions to Fermi's Paradox and the Problem of Extraterrestrial Life
Wide-ranging introduction to the paradoxes arising from standard assumptions about technological progress, the abundance of sapient life and the age of planets. (****) - M. E. Durham: High Albania: A Victorian Traveller's Balkan Odyssey
A rugged Edwardian (not Victorian) lady's travels through Ottoman-ruled Albania. Colorful, with surprising empathy for the feud-ridden natives. (****) - Philip Jenkins: Hidden Gospels: How the Search for Jesus Lost Its Way
Solid, though slightly plodding, refutation of the bizarre "Jesus Seminar" theories about early Christian history. (****) - Walter E. Kaegi: Heraclius, Emperor of Byzantium
Life of the Emperor who saved Byzantium from the Persians but could not fend off the Moslem advance. Good on military affairs and government; weak on the important religious side of the story. (****) - R. J. Knecht: The French Civil Wars, 1562 - 1598
Succinct account of the Wars of Religion, considering the religious, social and economic factors that made them prolonged and indecisive. (****) - Noel Emmanuel Lenski: Failure of Empire: Valens and the Roman State in the Fourth Century A.D.
Life of the ruler who lost the crucial Battle of Adrianople (A.D. 378). Ably researched but marred by excessive hindsight and anachronistic view of how the Roman Empire functioned. (****) - J. E. Lendon: Empire of Honour: The Art of Government in the Roman World
Superb analysis of the mainsprings of Imperial Roman government. The author has an eye for the telling detail and empathy with a culture whose root assumptions differed from our own. (*****) - Donald Keene: Emperor of Japan
The history of the Meiji Restoration from the viewpoint of its Emperor. Despite a wealth of detail, however, the mind of the central figure remains enigmatic. (****) - Laurence Kelly: Diplomacy and Murder in Tehran : Alexander Griboyedov and the Tsar's Mission to the Shah of Persia
The brief life and tragic death of a brilliant soldier-playwright turned diplomat. (****) - Trevor Royle: Crimea: The Great Crimean War, 1854-1856
Covers all theaters of a conflict that was not limited to the Crimea. (****) - Richard Osgood & Sarah Monks: Bronze Age Warfare
Survey of the fortification sites, weapons finds and other archeological evidence relating to warfare in Bronze Age Europe. Stronger on description than interpretation but excellent at what it does. (****) - Kenneth M. Pollack: Arabs at War: Military Effectiveness, 1948-1991
Since 1948 Arab armies have been uniformly unsuccessful against non-Arab enemies. This thorough history and analysis tries to identify the reasons for this record of failure. (*****) - Azar Gat: A History of Military Thought: From the Enlightenment to the Cold War
Revisionist survey of military theory that tries, with mixed success, to show the impact of general ideological trends on ideas about how to fight wars. Strongest when discussing the 19th Century; hit and miss as it approaches the present. (****)
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