100 Percent Franzen
Franzen’s strength is probing concepts we have been raised to emulate or strive for. The question of how secrets can either fester or come out is treated on practically every page of the novel.
Reviews
The Marshall Plan
Absent the convention of an “Introduction,” the reader of Debi and Irwin Unger’s new biography of George C. Marshall must get well along in the narrative before its purpose is grasped. From then on, clarity about what the authors are about intensifies: an attempted take-down of the historical reputation of the man generally regarded as America’s finest public servant in the 20th century.
Rizzo’s Reign, And Other Observations About Policing
The reign of Frank Rizzo was also the era of the rising black political power in Philadelphia. Nowhere was the clash of racial interests more intense than the police department.
Lawmen
Two new biographies reveal that police work is not so simple and straight-forward—cops versus robbers, order versus chaos—as many might think. Those enlisted in the job of enforcing the law are more complicated in their impulses and motivations, more conflicted or contradictory as human beings about the meaning of what they are doing, than partisans of either side willing to concede.
Chicago Dreams Deferred
Renegade Dreams aims to uncover the new dreams of a post-industrial, 21st-century urban black community, and in the author's words, to “reframe” the dreamers apart from the rioters, gangsters or savage youth so often portrayed in the media.
Saigon Syndrome
Christian G. Appy argues, unsurprisingly, that the destructive and immoral actions of the United States in Vietnam punctured the myth of American exceptionalism. Yet that same exceptionalism survives largely intact today.
The World’s Civil War
At long last, here is a book specialists in British, French, Spanish, Italian, and, yes, U.S. Civil War history will all find new ideas to explore and new contentions with which to grapple.
Paris Burning
Massacre: The Life and Death of the Paris Commune presents a wonderfully vivid depiction of the Paris Commune that alternates deftly between humor and heartbreak.
Enter the Dragon
Yong Zhao analyzes the origins, strengths, and failures of the Chinese educational system with an emphasis on its authoritarian nature. He may ease the concerns of other countries, who may feel pressured to follow the Chinese model, but he also demonstrates how problematic comparisons can be.
