The Longest War
Consider 9/11 and the Arab Spring of 2011 as opposing bookends to a decade of repression, fear, and fetishized violence. 9/11—the worst terrorist attack on United States soil—killed nearly 3,000…
Nonfiction
41 posts
What books can tell us about the world.
The Partnership: Five Cold Warriors and Their Quest to Ban The Bomb
Unless you are a World War II history buff, you may have missed the fact that the island of Tinian in the Northern Mariana Islands played an important role in…
My Beloved World
You would be remiss if you didn’t ask how Justice Sotomayor transcended the adversity of her childhood: dangerous neighborhoods, chronic poverty, an alcoholic father, an unhappy mother. Yet My Beloved World is a memoir suffused with gratitude, generosity, and love.
Music and the Armenian Diaspora
Big Band music saved my sanity during an especially stressful time in my life. I was working long hours, seven days a week, on a high-stakes project. I actually liked…
The Long Emancipation
As discussed by the scholar Ira Berlin in his monograph The Long Emancipation: The Demise of Slavery in the United States, the struggle for freedom is, at its core, about…
Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets
Secondhand Time gives readers a history of people's stories - their stories of what it was like to live through the fall of the Soviet Union and what has been carved in its wake.
A Singular Woman
For many, Ann Dunham is known as the mother of the 44th U.S. president who happened to be white, and that’s just about all they know about her. In A Singular Woman, Janny Scott retrieves Dunham from the bin of misrepresentation and presents an accomplished woman.
The Grind: Inside Baseball’s Endless Season
The millstone in The Grind is professional baseball. The grain it grinds are the men and women who either play the game, are players' wives, or have a specific role that makes the game possible.
Reading Obama
James T. Kloppenberg has written an important book that demystifies Barack Obama. In his book, Reading Obama, Kloppenberg reveals a man who is deeply embedded in the American political and cultural tradition of civic virtue.
Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking
Introverts need less outside stimulation than extroverts. They shut the door while extroverts keep it open. Introverts work slowly and deliberately, whereas extroverts work quickly and multitask. Introverts’ nervous systems…