A review of The Man Without a Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin, by Masha Gessen. ★★★★☆. A critical biography of the three-term Russian President by a skilled Moscow reporter with personal knowledge of the people and events of the time since the fall of Communism.
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Some of us, schooled in idealized portraits of ancient civilizations such as Rome and Greece and China, jump to conclusions about how history is repeating itself when we see superficial similarities to what we think took place thousands of years ago. Of course, we do know that history...
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Obviously, I’m some kind of masochist. To date I’ve read and reviewed 25 books about Donald Trump. I’d sworn off subjecting myself to any others until Maggie Haberman’s account of Trump’s first year back in office. She’s been on point on Donald Trump for the New...
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Twenty-nine-year-old Richard Newhall was teaching history at Harvard. Younger at 22, George Haydock, a Quaker, was a recent graduate, as was Alexander McKinlock a wealthy football hero. Younger still, William Morgan was an undergraduate there. By contrast, graduate George Redwood was a celerated...
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Biologically modern humans have roamed the Earth for some 300,000 years. Yet what we refer to as history dwells on the past 5,000 years or so, since writing was invented in ancient Sumer. Prehistory—what took place before then—was largely the subject of speculation until recently. But advances in...
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You may have the impression that Winston Churchill stood alone in warning England of the rising Nazi menace. Many histories of the period paint that picture. But it’s not accurate. In fact, a group of younger Conservative MPs were vocal opponents of the Tory Establishment’s policy of...
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Three decades ago an American historian named David Christian who was teaching at an Australian university at the time offered a new perspective on world history. His unique take on the subject took the discipline far beyond the limits of the written word. Calling it Big History, Christian started...
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Since early in the 19th century, the men who rule Russia have relied on secret intelligence to preserve their hold on power. Tsar Nicholas I started it all in 1826. The Third Section, which he founded then, grew and morphed over the years, changing names and broadening its mission. But for most of...
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Historians usually credit President Theodore Roosevelt with launching the United States as an imperial power. But no president did more to establish the country as a power to be reckoned with than Thomas Jefferson. In 1803, he took advantage of the turmoil unleashed by Napoleon Bonaparte to buy...
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Even if you follow international news only casually, you’re likely to be aware that Putin’s Russia is a kleptocracy. Two dozen oligarchs effectively run the country. Some, including President Vladimir Putin himself, hold government office. Others are private “bankers” and...
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Here are 20 nonfiction books that present a broad overview of World War II and the factors that led up to it. The list does not fully reflect the war’s global dimensions. It’s biased toward an American, British, and French point of view.
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In 2022, a 17-year-old computer wizard named Theo Baker entered Stanford University. Besotted with idealism, he’d come to California believing that Stanford could enable him to make the world a better place. As a “hobby,” he volunteered for the Stanford Daily student newspaper....
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From its early days following World War I, what Hitler later renamed the Nazi Party had a powerful political sponsor behind the scenes: the Thule Society. Hitler biographer Ian Kershaw notes that the organization’s “membership list … reads like a Who’s Who of early Nazi...
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Gertrude Bell (1868-1926) was one of the most remarkable women of the 20th century. Or of any century, for that matter. Her life spanned the Victorian and Edwardian eras, the First World War, and its aftermath. She distinguished herself as an explorer, mountaineer, travel writer, political...
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You won’t recognize some of the names on this list of exceptional women. Most were little known even in their own time. They represent a wide range of activities, from espionage to politics to science and to running their countries. But what they have in common with the three reigning monarchs...
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Any American youngster past the age of 12 has learned that around the turn of the 20th century our country’s politics took a sharp turn to the left with the advent of the Progressive Movement. And one man above all embodies that movement: Theodore Roosevelt. Of course, a species of...
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A review of Spillover: Animal Infections and the Next Human Pandemic, by David Quammen. Tales of the often-heroic scientists, physicians, and veterinarians who worked directly with deadly emergent diseases such as AIDS, Ebola, Marburg, and H5N1, occasionally at the cost of their own lives.
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On a hill named Mount Herzl in Jerusalem lies Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center. Within this moving memorial to the six million Jews murdered in the Holocaust lie a synagogue, a children’s museum, and research facilities as well as a garden commemorating the Righteous Among...
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When I was born in 1941, about six months before the United States entered World War II, the world’s three largest cities were New York, Tokyo, and London (which had been #2 before the Blitz). None of the three housed even close to 10 million people. As of 2025, the three largest are...
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If you watched the HBO drama Succession, you’ll have a sense of what happened to the once-famous Seabrook frozen-food dynasty. Succession features a tyrannical “self-made” founder, hideous corporate crime, cynical right-wing politics, sibling rivalry, backstabbing, and worse....
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...includes my latest nonfiction book review, with links to other nonfiction content.
Mysteries & Thrillers Tuesday includes my latest mystery and thriller book review,
with links to other science fiction content.
Nonfiction Wednesday includes my latest nonfiction book review,
with links to other nonfiction content.
The Weekly includes summaries and links to all the previous week’s three to five book reviews, including some that don’t appear in any of the other newsletters.
Mysteries & Thrillers Tuesday includes my latest mystery and thriller book review, with links to other science fiction content.
Nonfiction Wednesday includes my latest nonfiction book review, with links to other nonfiction content.
The Weekly includes summaries and links to all the previous week’s three to five book reviews, including some that don’t appear in any of the other newsletters.