Book Reviews

Steve Wasserman on Fidel Castro

BLANK Apr 11, 2008 What will history say about the implacable anti-imperialist and unrepentant revolutionary who has held power in Cuba for nearly 50 years? The publication of Fidel Castro's and Ignacio Ramonet's "My Life: A Spoken Autobiography" helps us understand the man and his myth. Dig deeper ( 24 Min. Read )

Bill Boyarsky on the Inimitable Willie Brown

Bill Boyarsky / Truthdig Apr 1, 2008 More than a quarter of a century before Barack Obama made his name with a speech at the Democratic National Convention, another African-American politician, Willie L. Brown Jr. of San Francisco, did the same -- but under much different circumstances. Dig deeper ( 7 Min. Read )

Fred Branfman on Tom Brokaw’s ‘Boom!’

Fred Branfman / Truthdig Mar 28, 2008 What kind of look back to the '60s manages to almost entirely ignore or miss the point of the Vietnam War? Dig deeper ( 8 Min. Read )

Anthony Heilbut on MaryBeth Hamilton’s ‘In Search of the Blues’

Anthony Heilbut / Truthdig Mar 21, 2008 What accounts for the strange need of some white scholars -- from the plantation nostalgists of the late 1890s to the "Blues Mafia" of the 1960s -- to honor African-American culture by trying to save black people from themselves? Dig deeper ( 15 Min. Read )

Mark Dowie on Michael Shnayerson’s ‘Coal River’

Mark Dowie / Truthdig Mar 14, 2008 How a few brave Americans took on a powerful company and the federal government to save the land they love. Dig deeper ( 5 Min. Read )

Warren Cohen on the Rise (and Fall) of the Neocons

Warren I. Cohen / Truthdig Mar 7, 2008 Just who are the "neocons," where did they come from and how was it they came to wield so profound an influence among the highest circles of America's policy elites? These are some of the questions asked by Jacob Heilbrunn in his new book, "They Knew They Were Right." Dig deeper ( 10 Min. Read )

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 )