Tag Archives: History

I have complained here rather vociferously that many entertainers are ill-informed, naive, and/or just good old-fashioned stupid regarding politics and policy. They are, of course entitled to their opinions, but the danger lies in the fact that entertainers hold much sway over fans, and are at minimum going to have …

A couple of weeks ago in celebration of Columbus Day, we discussed a series of books containing a quite unfavorable picture of the explorer, much of it written in his own words. Columbus clearly was, shall we say, insensitive to the well-being of the natives he found in the New …

Long New Yorker essay on Ellsberg and his new book on the Pentagon Papers: To anyone over a certain age (forty-five?), Daniel Ellsberg needs no introduction, but it would be quite a challenge to explain Ellsberg to someone who had never heard of him. There was this brilliant young man …

We neglected Columbus on Columbus Day (other than a discussion of Mayor Bloomberg’s decision not to march in NYC’s parade). Gary Farber points us to a rather grim assessment of Columbus in the New Yorker: Columbus was one of history’s great optimists. When he read in Marco Polo that the …

Chronicler of WWll succumbs to lung cancer at 66: Ambrose spent much of his career as a relatively little known history professor until he burst onto the best-seller’s list with his 1994 book “D-Day June 6, 1944: The Climactic Battle of World War II.” Based in large part on interviews …

As someone with a hand in two different 9/11 books, I am going to ignore the following report: Veteran New York City fireman John McCole has faced many challenges in his career but he is now undertaking a particularly daunting task: getting people to read his book about September 11. …

Gene Healy reviewed Noam Chomsky’s 9/11 book here extremely well last month, and since I agree with virtually all of his judgments, I will not reinvent this particular wheel. But I ran across this article that tells us Mr. Chomsky’s book has sold well over 100,000 copies, is even now …

From PW Daily For Booksellers: On the Eve of September 11, Bookstores Plan Commemorations With the anniversary of the September 11 attacks approaching rapidly, Hillel Italie of the Associated Press spoke to a handful of bookstores about their plans for commemorating the event. Borders, which had a store in the …