Book Reviews

Larry Blumenfeld on New Orleans’ Refusal to Vanish

Larry Blumenfeld / Truthdig Feb 22, 2008 Ned Sublette's remarkable new book tells an inspiring story of resilience and resistance by ordinary men and women who won't cooperate in their own erasure. Dig deeper ( 11 Min. Read )

Timothy Snyder on the Forgotten Holocaust

Timothy Snyder / Truthdig Feb 15, 2008 One of the great crimes of the 20th century -- the mass murder of Jews in the Nazi-occupied Soviet territories -- is all but forgotten. "The Unknown Black Book" helps us remember. Dig deeper ( 9 Min. Read )

Mark Arax on California’s Capitalist Founders

Mark Arax / Truthdig Feb 8, 2008 It is said that behind every great fortune there is a crime. Here's a true-life drama of self-invention, greed and ambition involving four larger-than-life men who singly, and together, helped create California. A book to be read after you've watched "There Will Be Blood." Dig deeper ( 5 Min. Read )

Milton Viorst on Israel’s Tragic Predicament

Milton Viorst / Truthdig Feb 1, 2008 Can decent Israelis, caught between complacency and conscience, save their beleaguered country from the corruptions of power, religious fanaticism and crippling hubris? Dig deeper ( 14 Min. Read )

Chalmers Johnson on the Myth of Free Trade

Chalmers Johnson / Truthdig Jan 25, 2008 A powerful new book by a young South Korean-born economist at Cambridge University provides a compelling critique of the contradictions and hypocrisies of globalization and neoliberalism. The perfect antidote to the nostrums of Thomas Friedman. Dig deeper ( 15 Min. Read )

Michael Gorra on J.M. Coetzee’s ‘Diary of a Bad Year’

Michael Gorra / Truthdig Jan 18, 2008 The Nobel Prize-winning author of such stunning (and controversial) novels as "Waiting for the Barbarians" and "Disgrace" offers up his 19th book, about a South African writer, like Coetzee himself, who now lives in Australia and tries to understand the role of a writer caught between hope and history. Dig deeper ( 10 Min. Read )

Doug Henwood on Robert Kuttner’s ‘The Squandering of America’

Doug Henwood / Truthdig Jan 11, 2008 Just how sick is the U.S. economy? Just how deep is the divide between the super-rich and the rest of us? Just how bad would a meltdown of our political economy be? And what, if anything, can be done about it? Dig deeper ( 7 Min. Read )

Carol Brightman on the 1960s

Carol Brightman / Truthdig Jan 4, 2008 Three new memoirs by veterans of the New Left provide nuance and complexity to a tumultuous decade whose political and cultural legacy is still contested. Bonus points to those who can answer the question: Do you still need a Weatherman to know which way the wind blows? Dig deeper ( 21 Min. Read )

Carla Kaplan on ‘The Mitfords’

Carla Kaplan / Truthdig Dec 28, 2007 A new collection of letters between the fascinating Mitford sisters offers unparalleled insight into one of the 20th century's most famous families. Dig deeper ( 12 Min. Read )

Zachary Karabell on Mark Lilla’s ‘The Stillborn God’

Zachary Karabell / Truthdig Dec 21, 2007 With religious passions inflaming and complicating politics worldwide, the very project of a secular future is threatened. In "The Stillborn God," Mark Lilla reveals the roots of the age-old quest to bring political life under God's authority. He also explores how modern Western thinkers found a way to free politics from theological power and build barriers against destructive religious fanaticism. Dig deeper ( 5 Min. Read )

Benjamin Barber on ‘Supercapitalism’

Benjamin Barber / Truthdig Dec 14, 2007 Can an overheated market remedy an underachieving democracy? Can the public interest be served by an economic engine in which corporate rivals use government to quash their competitors? These and other questions are the subject of a provocative new book by Robert Reich, labor secretary under President Clinton. Benjamin Barber, author of "Jihad vs. McWorld" and "Consumed," takes a close look at Reich's argument. Dig deeper ( 8 Min. Read )

Andrew Cockburn on the Islamic Bomb

Andrew Cockburn / Truthdig Dec 7, 2007 A quartet of new books provides an inside look at Pakistan's nuclear smuggling network and how it flourished. A sordid tale of how the United States simultaneously acted as an enabler for the construction of the "Islamic Bomb" and coddled the Islamists who might one day control it. Dig deeper ( 8 Min. Read )