book reviews

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  

  Should Black Northerners Move Back to the South?

  by Tanisha C. Ford

  Historian Tanisha C. Ford reviews Charles M. Blow's book, which advocates for a Reverse Great Migration to empower both Black Americans and progressive policies. She concludes it's an intriguing idea but oversimplifies the history of migration, disenfranchisement, and activism by Black southerners and their allies.

• 
• SOURCE: The Nation
  2/23/2021
  

  The Broken System: What Comes After Meritocracy?

  by Elizabeth Anderson

  Philosopher Elizabeth Anderson reviews Michael Sandel's critique of meritocracy, a book that locates an explanation for the Trumpian moment in the rise of competitive individualism in the platforms of both major parties. 

• 
• SOURCE: The Nation
  2/24/2021
  

  A Poisonous Legacy: New York City and the Persistence of the Middle Passage

  by Gerald Horne

  Historian Gerald Horne reviews John Harris's book on the role of New York merchants in the illegal last phase of the Atlantic slave trade, which persisted despite the law because trade in human beings enriched Americans throughout the nation. 

• 
• SOURCE: Dissent
  2/14/2021
  

  Backlash Forever (Review Essay)

  by Gabriel Winant

  Historian Gabriel Winant reviews two recent books about the past and present of reactionary white working class politics and considers whether this tendency can be overcome. 

• 
• SOURCE: The New Yorker
  1/28/2021
  

  The Conservative Case Against the Boomers

  by Ben Wallace-Wells

  Reviewed: Helen Andrews' "Boomers," which indicts the affluent and influential members of that generation from a conservative Catholic perspective for delivering freedom only for their advantaged cohort while establishing a debased and decadent set of cultural norms. 

• 
• SOURCE: Los Angeles Review of Books
  12/5/2020
  

  Performance Anxiety: How Cold War Men’s Adventure Magazines Shaped Soldiers’ (Mis)Understandings of the Vietnam War (Review)

  by Nicholas Utzig

  A consideration of Gregory Daddis's book "Pulp Vietnam: War and Gender in Cold War Men’s Adventure Magazines."

• 
• SOURCE: Boston Review
  10/29/2020
  

  When Democracy Ails, Magic Thrives

  by Samuel Clowes-Huneke

  A new book by historian Monica Black suggests that the irrational was never absent from the postwar order—and, moreover, that florid eruptions of mystical thinking often accompany periods of extreme political upheaval. 

• 
• SOURCE: The Nation
  7/27/2020
  

  Present Absences: A Century of Struggle in Palestine (Review)

  For Khalidi, the British mandate established two parallel realities in Palestine: an embryonic nation-building project for the Jewish minority and the continuation of colonial policy for the Arab majority, whose question of self-determination was left unaddressed.

• 
• SOURCE: Law & Liberty
  6/22/2020
  

  A Master Historian at Work

  by George H. Nash

  The award-winning historian's reflections on the writing and teaching of history offer a master class in the scholar's art. 

• 
• SOURCE: NY Times
  2/4/20
  

  Philanderers, Predators and Pickup Artists: A History

  A review of SEDUCTION: A History From the Enlightenment to the Present by Clement Knox.

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  1/7/20
  

  When White Supremacists Overthrew an Elected Government: David Zucchino's Wilmington's Lie Reviewed

  “Wilmington’s Lie” is a tragic story about the brutal overthrow of the multiracial government of Wilmington, N.C., in 1898.

• 
• SOURCE: LA Review of Books
  12/13/19
  

  A New Kind of Bondage

  by Jason S. Sexton

  TONY PLATT’S Beyond These Walls provides a relentless critique of the United States’s carceral regime, prompting us to rethink how criminal justice institutions operate.

• 
• SOURCE: Foreign Affairs
  Accessed 12/5/19
  

  Foreign Affairs Reviews James Banner's Presidential Misconduct: From George Washington to Today

  Banner describes the book as an exercise of “historians’ civic office.”

• 
• SOURCE: Washington Post
  10/24/19
  

  ‘Cabinets of Curiosities’ delves into the history of collectors and their stunning, strange acquisitions

  In “Cabinets of Curiosities,” Patrick Mauriès tells the history of some truly awesome collectors.

• 
• 10/27/19
  

  New Jim Mattis Memoir Avoids Criticizing Trump, Instead Lashes Bush, Obama, and Others

  by Jeffrey J. Matthews

  With consequential elections forthcoming now is the time for Mattis to tell voters the unvarnished truth about Donald Trump.     

• 

• ‘Return to the Reich’ Review: Refugee Redux

  The true story of a Jewish boy from Freiburg who escaped Nazi Germany only to return as an American commando on a secret mission.

• 
• 10/13/19
  

  The Original War on Terror

  by Eric Laursen

  A review of Nunzio Pernicone and Fraser M. Ottanelli, Assassins against the Old Order: Italian Anarchist Violence in Fin de Siècle Europe.

• 
• 10/13/19
  

  Author Christian Di Spigna Is On a Mission to Honor a Revolutionary War Hero

  by Michael McQuillan

  A review of Founding Martyr: The Life and Death of Dr. Joseph Warren, the American Revolution’s Lost Hero.

• 
• 10/13/19
  

  The Moral Compass of America’s Most Distinguished Soldier and Statesman

  by James Thornton Harris

  George Marshall’s honesty and modesty were a key to his success.

• 
• 9/29/19
  

  Myth vs History: A Study of Vietnam War Stories and Journalism

  by Jerry Lembcke 

  Australia’s Vietnam by Mark Dapin is important for the rectification it brings to public memory of Vietnam War homecomings.