Book Reviews
The legacy of Leonard Bernstein: a book review
By Fred Mazelis, November 24, 2010
A recent book by Barry Seldes adds something important to the study of Leonard Bernstein’s life and work. Seldes, a professor at Ryder University in New Jersey, is the first biographer to have studied the conductor-composer’s massive FBI dossier.
The Stieg Larsson phenomenon
By David Walsh, September 8, 2010
The three novels by Swedish author Stieg Larsson, published in the US as The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire, and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest, have attracted much attention around the world.
Photo book of the month: Red Star Over Russia
A visual history by David King of the Soviet Union from 1917 to the death of Joseph Stalin
By Adelbert Reif, August 19, 2010
David King’s Red Star Over Russia is a truly superlative photo book!
German journalist Götz Aly denounces pension system
By Stefan Steinberg, August 13, 2010
In his attack on the German welfare state the journalist Götz Aly speaks on behalf of an increasingly unstable petit-bourgeois social layer that tossed aside its youthful radicalism a long time ago and has been able to forge a lucrative career during the past three decades.
A sense of unease: Tobias Wolff’s recent fiction collected in Our Story Begins
By Sandy English, August 10, 2010
Over the past thirty years, Tobias Wolff has produced several collections of short stories, novels, and popular memoirs, especially This Boy’s Life, as well as In Pharaoh’s Army, about his experiences during the Vietnam War.
Confessions of a scoundrel
The Third Man: Life at the Heart of New Labour, by Peter Mandelson
By Dave Hyland, August 5, 2010
Peter Mandelson played a central role in the transformation of the reformist Labour Party into an openly right-wing capitalist party.
Diane Ravitch’s The Death and Life of the Great American School System
An insider’s critique of education “reform”
By Walter Gilberti and Jerry White, July 27, 2010
Diane Ravitch’s book presents a summary on the attack on public education, from its origins during the Reagan era to Obama’s Race to the Top.
Present historic: Carlyle, Robespierre and the French Revolution
By Ann Talbot, July 17, 2010
Ruth Scurr has done an enormous service by producing a collection of extracts from Thomas Carlyle’s powerful narrative The French Revolution to add to her earlier biography of Robespierre in which she uncovers something of the character and motivations of a man who is more usually hidden in the “blood r
Present historic: Carlyle, Robespierre, and the French Revolution
Part two
By Ann Talbot, July 16, 2010
Ruth Scurr has done an enormous service by producing a collection of extracts from Thomas Carlyle’s powerful narrative The French Revolution to add to her earlier biography of Robespierre, in which she uncovers something of the character and motivations of a man who is more usually hidden in the “blood
Present historic: Carlyle, Robespierre and the French Revolution
Part one
By Ann Talbot, July 15, 2010
Ruth Scurr has done an enormous service by producing a collection of extracts from Thomas Carlyle’s powerful narrative The French Revolution to add to her earlier biography of Robespierre in which she uncovers something of the character and motivations of a man who is more usually hidden in the “blood r
Letters on Strange Fruit by Kenan Malik
May 11, 2010
The following letters were sent to the WSWS in response to Nancy Hanover’s review, “‘Strange Fruit’ by Kenan Malik: A polemic against racism and identity politics”
“Strange Fruit” by Kenan Malik: A polemic against racism and identity politics
By Nancy Hanover, May 8, 2010
Kenan Malik has situated himself in the crosshairs of the dispute over the nature of race, arguing from the standpoint of Enlightenment rationalism and scientific objectivity.
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