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Collected reviews from decades of reading — organized by subject and written for clarity, context, and long-term reference.
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Popular historian David McCullough is something of a legend — and deservedly so. Few in his generation have ever equaled, let alone surpassed, his ability to construct a richly textured and deeply researched historical narrative. This gem, his first full length book, is every bit as good as his eventual Pulitzer Prize-winners, “John Adams” and…
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Before I deployed to Afghanistan in 2009 I read everything I could about the country and its fascinating, but remarkably violent history. I was particularly interested to learn more about the Soviet experience. However, there was precious little to be found outside of some War College books that were insightful but lacked an overall narrative…
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God bless Peter Bernstein, may he rest in peace. No one else could make arcane and seemingly dull topics (e.g. the history of gold or of statistics) so fascinating and accessible. In 2009, the year of Bernstein’s death, the celebrated academic economist Niall Ferguson published a bestseller, “The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of…
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The central thesis of this book is that the gold standard, “far from being synonymous with stability, [was] itself … the principal threat to financial stability and economic prosperity between the wars.” Paradoxically, the prevailing conventional wisdom at the time was that the opposite was true: only gold could achieve stability and growth. UC Berkeley…
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British ancient historian Michael Grant is a legend of sorts, although I’m sure that plenty of classically trained Roman historians shutter at that appellation. Here, with “The Twelve Caesars,” originally published in 1975, he seeks to deliver to a modern audience in plain English and shorn of contemporary prejudice the men who ruled Rome from…
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The city of Constantinople was the greatest defensive structure of the medieval world. In the course of its 1,123 year history up to the year 1453 it had been besieged 23 times, and only once successfully, ironically by the Christian knights of the Fourth Crusade in 1204. Muslim armies made only a handful of attempts,…
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I took a fantastic cultural exchange trip to Cuba in November 2015. In preparation for the trip I read a variety of books about Cuba: biographies, memoirs, novels and histories. “Barardi,” by Tom Gjelten of NPR fame, was probably the single best introduction to the island’s history and contemporary affairs. The author’s central point is…
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McDonald’s will always have a special place in my heart, even though I rarely eat there these days. A happy meal was a treasured treat when I was a kid and my first real job was working the drive-in window at a local McDonald’s. “McDonald’s: Behind the Arches” by John Love is an absorbing and…
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Unfortunately, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is as thorny, intractable and relevant in 2016 as it was thirty-plus years ago when the civil war in Beirut dominated the headlines. This page-turner of a book, “The Good Spy: The Life and Death of Robert Ames” by Kai Bird is a fabulous view into the reality of late twentieth…
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