Stuck with Pound

Stuck with Pound

Cathay: A Critical Edition by Ezra Pound, Edited by Timothy Billings. Fordham University Press, 2019. Hardcover, 364 pages, $35. The Bughouse: The Poetry, Politics, and Madness of Ezra Pound by Daniel Swift. Farrar Straus and Giroux, 2017, Hardcover, 320 pages, $27....
A Virus and a Fall of Rome

A Virus and a Fall of Rome

Scarpia by Piers Paul Read. Bloomsbury, 2016. Hardcover, 364 pages, $27. Reviewed by Trevor C. Merrill You could enjoy this novel about a young Sicilian rising through the ranks of Roman society in the 1790s without knowing anything about Puccini’s Tosca. It’s a...
The Rise of the State, the End of Enlightenment

The Rise of the State, the End of Enlightenment

Terrorists, Anarchists, and Republicans: The Genevans and the Irish in Time of Revolution By Richard Whatmore. Princeton University Press, 2019. Hardcover, 512 pages, $37.52. Reviewed by Nayeli L. Riano We often consider the Treaty of Westphalia the beginning of the...
The Renaissance Reimagined

The Renaissance Reimagined

The Beauty and the Terror: The Italian Renaissance and the Rise of the West by Catherine Fletcher. Oxford University Press, 2020. Hardcover, 384 pages, $30. Reviewed by Clayton Trutor Not all that long ago, the Renaissance was common cultural terrain in American life....
Maoism Exported

Maoism Exported

Maoism: A Global Historyby Julia Lovell.Alfred A. Knopf, 2019.Hardcover, 610 pages, $37.50. Reviewed by Thomas Albert Howard As if parodying the era’s radical chic, a 1967 issue of Lui magazine (France’s Playboy) included a supplement illustrated with quotes from Mao...
The Towns Brexit Forgets

The Towns Brexit Forgets

Little Platoons: How a Revived One Nation Can Empower England’s Forgotten Towns and Redraw the Political Map By David Skelton. Biteback Publishing, 2019. Paperback, 304 pages, £12.99. Reviewed by Gerard T. Mundy The 2016 popular vote in favor of the United Kingdom’s...