A European’s take on Islam in Western democracies The Fear of Barbarians, by Tzvetan Todorov. Translated by Andrew Brown. University of Chicago Press, 2010. $27.50, 200 pp. On Nov. 1, gunmen affiliated with the Islamic State of Iraq, an al Qaeda umbrella group, massacred over 58 worshipers and police in an attack on a Catholic … Read more
How traditional liberalism gave way to corporate power The Death of the Liberal Class, by Chris Hedges. Nation Books, 2010. $24.95, 248 pp. The ongoing recession, two interminable wars, and mounting populist rage are all symptoms of a systemic problem. So argues Christopher Hedges, a self-identified socialist and a former war correspondent for the New … Read more
The Tea Party and its uses of American history The Whites of Their Eyes: The Tea Party’s Revolution and the Battle over American History, by Jill Lepore. Princeton University Press, 2010. $19.95, 224 pp. In April 2009, Bill O’Reilly asked Sarah Palin on national television, “Why do you think America is a Christian nation?” For … Read more
The blessings and burdens of being chosen The Chosen Peoples: America, Israel, and the Ordeals of Divine Election, by Todd Gitlin and Liel Leibovitz. Simon & Schuster, 2010. $26.00, 250 pp. In a speech marking the 60th anniversary of Israel’s statehood, President Bush said that Israelis are a “chosen people” who can forever count on … Read more
Historians weigh in on the Bush presidency The Presidency of George W. Bush: A First Historical Assessment, edited by Julian E. Zelizer. Princeton University Press, 2010. $29.95, 386 pp. When Bob Woodward asked George W. Bush how history will judge the Iraq War, Bush replied with a shrug, “History, we don’t know. We’ll all be … Read more
A journalist’s search for purpose in a murky war Every Man in This Village is a Liar: An Education in War, by Megan K. Stack. Knopf Doubleday, 2010. $26.95, 257 pp. Americans, most of whom are not at war in any meaningful sense, are somehow war-weary from a decade of violence that is totally distant … Read more
A thoughtful meditation on East and West Somebody Else’s Century: East and West in a Post-Western World, by Patrick Smith. Pantheon Books, 2010. $25.95, 242 pp. “This is not a useful book in the way we ordinarily think of one,” Patrick Smith tells us at the beginning of Somebody Else’s Century. Forgoing the economic forecasting … Read more
Taking on the foreign policy elite Washington Rules: America’s Path to Permanent War, by Andrew Bacevich. Metropolitan, 2010. $25.00, 304 pp. “If we have to use force, it is because we are America; we are the indispensable nation. We stand tall and we see further than other countries into the future, and we see the … Read more
As long as Hong Kong’s economy is booming, calls for democracy will remain on the backburner When Google stopped complying with China’s censorship laws, users could still access the Hong Kong site, where they could see unfiltered results, including ones about Tiananmen Square and Tibet. This was a victory for the former colony, a reminder … Read more
An exposé of the math guys who broke the economy The quants: how a new breed of math whizzes conquered Wall Street and nearly destroyed it, by Scott Patterson, Crown Business, 2010. $27.00, 337 pp. Wall Street titans like Lehman Brothers CEO Dick Fuld, AIG CEO Hank Greenberg, and scam artist Bernie Madoff have emerged … Read more