Looming Civil War: How Nineteenth-Century Americans Imagined the Future By Jason Phillips. Oxford University Press, 2018. Hardcover, 320 pages, $35. Reviewed by Carl Lawrence Paulus “What is past is prologue.” William Shakespeare’s line from The Tempest is inscribed...
Interior States: Essays by Meghan O’Gieblyn. Anchor, 2018. Paperback, 240 pages, $16. Reviewed by Veery Huleatt I learned to see myself as an anachronism when I was about nine, when I caught sight of my reflection overlaid on the posters of beautiful women advertising...
Two Tolkiens on View Tolkien: Maker of Middle Earth [Exhibition catalogue] Edited by Catherine McIlwaine. Bodleian Library, 2018. Hardcover, 416 pages, $65. Reviewed by Alexi Sargeant The red jumps off the page. You’re in the middle of a letter from Father Christmas...
Circe by Madeline Miller. Little, Brown and Company, 2018. Hardcover, 400 pages, $27. Reviewed by Colleen M. Curran Madeline Miller’s 2011 debut novel, Song of Achilles, presented a recasting of Homer’s Iliad that retold the familiar tale from the perspective of...
These Truths: A History of the United States by Jill Lepore. W. W. Norton, 2018. Hardcover, 960 pages, $40. Part One: The Idea (1492–1799) Reviewed by Craig Bruce Smith “The United States is founded on a set of ideas,” says eminent historian Jill Lepore in the opening...
These Truths: A History of the United States by Jill Lepore. W. W. Norton, 2018. Hardcover, 960 pages, $40. Part Two, The People (1800–1865) Reviewed by Daniel N. Gullotta Sweeping histories of the United States by a single scholar always worry me. This is not to say...
