Iran at the Epicenter

A recurring problem with contemporary books about the Islamic Republic is that authors often deny Iranians the agency they deserve. Especially on the left, Western and Iranian journalists and scholars can embrace this crippling sentiment since it’s been a way to cast off blame for the ugliness—the primitiveness—of the Islamic revolution and the theocracy that […]

The post Iran at the Epicenter appeared first on .

A Little More Conversation

Reading this book will improve your life. No kidding whatsoever. Indeed, just getting a copy from your local library and spending 90 minutes with it will improve your life. Nicholas Epley, a distinguished behavioral scientist at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business, commutes by train every workday to Hyde Park for 30 minutes […]

The post A Little More Conversation appeared first on .

What a Piece of Work Is Man

For people who have not been initiated to the career of Jon Ronson, it is almost impossible to explain; for people who have, his career is almost impossible to ignore. The America-residing Welsh journalist, whose specialty may be said to be "the weird," is a member of a small and shrinking group of working nonfiction […]

The post What a Piece of Work Is Man appeared first on .

Israel’s Rivals in a Fight for Survival

In the War Room is a detailed reconstruction of how Israel's top officials navigated the three-year series of wars that began with Hamas's invasion of Israel on October 7. The book lets us zoom out, providing structure and narrative coherence to a conflict that is in some ways still ongoing, and that most people know only from daily news stories, many of them deeply inaccurate.

The post Israel’s Rivals in a Fight for Survival appeared first on .

Book Complaining About Israeli Influence Ironically Benefits From Offshore Arab Funding

It's a rare book so vile that it has the power to render the reader physically nauseated.

The post Book Complaining About Israeli Influence Ironically Benefits From Offshore Arab Funding appeared first on .

The Last Roman City To Fall

"On May 29, 1453, the city of Constantinople disappeared." So writes Anthony Kaldellis in 1453: The Conquest and Tragedy of Constantinople, a riveting, passionate, indignant, eloquent, and—notably—revisionist book of history.

The post The Last Roman City To Fall appeared first on .

Haunted by the Holocaust

One remaining sign of life was also a call for death: A tattered demolition permit clung to a fence cordoning off the driveway to Grossinger's, formerly a 1,200-acre resort that made the Catskill Mountains worth the trip. The permit, hanging on in 2021, approved the destruction of the hotel's most upscale building, dreamed up during the retreat's 1960s heyday.

The post Haunted by the Holocaust appeared first on .

The Revolutionary Life of Lafayette

You are probably familiar with the Chinese curse, "May you live in interesting times." Such was the course of life of the Marquis de Lafayette. As Americans, we are likely not to understand that the French nobleman's life involved far more misfortune than good luck.

The post The Revolutionary Life of Lafayette appeared first on .

The Rocky Path to Prosecuting Terror

Over the course of eight years, from the bombing of the World Trade Center on February 26, 1993, through the destruction of that iconic American complex on September 11, 2001—in suicide hijackings that killed nearly 3,000 Americans, struck the Pentagon, and would have obliterated a target in the U.S. capital, probably the Capitol itself, were it not for the heroism of Flight 93's doomed passengers and crew—jihadist terrorists repeatedly attacked American installations at home and overseas.

The post The Rocky Path to Prosecuting Terror appeared first on .

Tiresome Targets in the War on Terror

Journalist Peter Bergen is back again with another book about terrorism, just in time for the 25th anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks. It's a history of the failed strategies of successive American presidents who have prosecuted our "Global War on Terror," or GWOT, since that fateful day.

The post Tiresome Targets in the War on Terror appeared first on .