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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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Nearly a quarter-millennium after his public beheading Maximilien Robespierre remains a controversial figure. There are over 50 schools, streets and buildings named after “The Incorruptible” in France today, but none within the city limits of Paris. A 2009 attempt to get a street named after him in the City of Lights was voted down by…
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“How had the high ideals of 1789 turned to the violence and terror of 1794?” That is the question that Timothy Tackett, professor emeritus of history at the University of California, Irvine, seeks to answer in his well-acclaimed 2015 book “The Coming of the Terror in the French Revolution.” It’s a great question and one…
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Few books about the French Revolution have had better legs in the academy than R.R. Palmer’s classic, “Twelve Who Ruled: The Year of Terror in the French Revolution.” First published in 1941, it is still often found on college syllabi across the country today. In its fifth summer, 1793 or Year II according to the…
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The Persian Gulf War of 1991 appeared to usher in a new age of warfare. Long range, precision-guided weapons quickly and easily decimated the formidable, battle-hardened army of Saddam Hussein. An information age “revolution in military affairs” seemed to offer a powerful new coercive tool for policymakers wary of committing ground forces and sustaining casualties.…
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“No Peace, No Honor,” the final installment in Larry Berman’s excellent trilogy on the Vietnam War, focuses on the tortured three-year-long negotiations that ultimately led to the 1973 Paris Peace Accords. Never mind the superlative on the back cover from Mark Clodfelter claiming that this book is “The most complete analysis of the Nixon era…
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In the late eighteenth century, Adam Smith observed that “in ancient times the opulent and civilized found it difficult to defend themselves against the poor and barbarous nations; in modern times the poor and barbarous find it difficult to defend themselves against the opulent and civilized.” In truth, the success of the “West against the…
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You should be aware of a couple of things before reading “Nathaniel’s Nutmeg: Or, The True and Incredible Adventures of the Spice Trader Who Changed the Course of History.” First, despite the title, this book has little to do with Nathaniel Courthope and his reputed adventures. In fact, Courthope doesn’t even appear in the narrative…
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“As long as human foresight remains imperfect, and our passions continue to induce us to fight one another, managing armed force wisely will remain both difficult and important.” So concludes historian William H. McNeil in this nifty essay of 48 pages, which is based largely on his lengthy treatise, “The Pursuit of Power: Technology, Armed…
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“Men, Machines, and Modern Times” by Elting Morison is a difficult book to review, primarily because it really isn’t a book at all, but rather a collection of lectures that the author delivered at various academic institutions in the 1950s. Taken together, the lectures address two distinct topics in the nature of innovation, although that’s…
What's Tim Reading Now? 