Books

Electoral Excitement, All Over Again

Erin Drankoski — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 11:38:00 -0500

Not too long ago, I predicted that a solid recent history of the 2008 election (Richard Wolffe's "Renegade") was likely to be the final word until President Obama wrote his own version of those storied events. A few months later, it appears that the conveyor belt is just getting started and that we will be reading about 2008 for a while to come. My bad!

Forecast: Self-Serving

Erin Drankoski — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 11:01:00 -0500

Bruce Bueno de Mesquita wants you to buy his book. He wants royalties and he wants fame. He wants the book to promote his consulting business. The text may well be full of self-promotional tall tales and calumny -- unless the author calculated that the costs of dishonesty (potential intellectual disrepute) outweighed the benefits (more fame, royalties and consulting). When he walks into bookstores, he probably moves his book from the back shelves to the front. If he knew I was writing this review, he'd think about crafty ways to manipulate me.

Penny Pincher

Erin Drankoski — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 08:41:00 -0400

I have a confession: I love my huge television. A couple of years ago, thanks to a very large Amazon.com gift certificate and a very poor grasp of measurements, I adopted a 50-inch plasma. It utterly dominated my tiny living room until I finally moved, yet even then I loved it. The vivid colors and enormous crystal-clear picture were a worthy substitute for the cinema. Video games were even better -- and "Blade Runner" on Blu-ray was sublime. It ended up being a very costly purchase, what with shipping and the

The Hawk And The Dove: Paul Nitze, George Kennan, And The History Of The Cold War | New York Times

Erin Drankoski — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 13:49:00 -0400

Nicholas Thompson says he was often taken aback by what he learned about his grandfather.

After all, Mr. Thompson is Nitze's grandson, and he had access to all of his grandfather's personal papers and letters, as well as to his family, his closest friends, even to his opponents, the old Soviet warriors who sat opposite him at the negotiating table.

Book Review: 'The House at the End of the Road' | Washington Post

Cecille Isidro — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 10:20:00 -0400

W. Ralph Eubanks's family memoir tells a double story, one about the past and the other about the author's efforts to uncover it. ...

What Obama Should Read | Washington Monthly

Cecille Isidro — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 14:56:00 -0400

STEVE COLL: I suggest The Invisible Cure: Africa, the West, and the Fight Against AIDS, by Helen Epstein. My premise is that the new president is a serious reader, is passionate about the big issues of his presidency, and hungers for reliable explication and detail, yet has limited time and therefore needs a single volume that is both easy to read and transformational in its effects. This at least was my experience as an accidental reader of The Invisible Cure.

Gold Erring

Cecille Isidro — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 11:17:00 -0400

How did we manage to have it all in the years after the Second World War--car, house, health care, affordable education, Social Security, rising wages, leisure--and where did it go? If anyone knows, please tell California. Things seemed to be going so well here a half century ago: unemployment rates just above 3 percent, swimming pools in every backyard, baseball teams poached from Brooklyn, matchless public schools and universities, and swift new highways. Good jobs were available to nearly anyone who came, and nearly everyone did.

It all seems awfully remote. Today's

The House at the End of the Road

Cecille Isidro — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 05:45:00 -0400

A New America Event
06/29/2009 - 12:15pm

In 1914, in defiance of his middle-class landowning family, a young white man named James Morgan Richardson married a light-skinned black woman named Edna Howell. Over more than twenty years of marriage, they formed a strong family and built a house at the end of a winding sandy road in South Alabama, a place where their safety from the hostile world around them was assured, and where they developed a unique racial and cultural identity. Jim and Edna Richardson were… more

No Smiting | New York Times Book Review

Cecille Isidro — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 06:45:00 -0400

POSTPONED: Legally Fond

Cecille Isidro — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 06:00:00 -0400

A New America Event
06/23/2009 - 12:15pm

This event has been postponed until further notice. We apologize for any inconvenience.

Please join the New America Foundation for a conversation with Gordon Silverstein on his book Law's Allure: How Law Shapes, Constrains, Saves, and Kills Politics.