Tom Connolly

Book Review: “When Caesar Was King” — How Sid Caesar Reinvented American Comedy

February 16, 2026
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The book argues, convincingly, that Sid Caesar’s genius wasn’t in what he did or said so much as in the anarchistic energy he encouraged his writers to unleash and harness.

Book Review: “Ethel Barrymore” — A Reliable Itinerary, but the Bio Misses the Journey

February 13, 2026
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Kathleen Spaltro’s biography of Ethel Barrymore briskly traces her mythic career but brings to life neither the woman nor her theatre.

Book Review: Barrymore Shadows — “Too Fast, Too Short” Does Justice to the Life of a Nepo Orphan

September 30, 2025
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Jennifer Ann Redmond’s sympathetic approach to Diana Barrymore’s disastrous life is valuable because it rejects the poor-little-rich-girl tropes. She was more than a debauched debutante or fallen starlet.

Book Review: “Three Speeches That Saved the Union” — Truth, Powerful and Strange

September 17, 2025
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The political and moral consequences of the Compromise of 1850 continue to be debated, but Peter Charles Hoffer’s book offers valuable lessons on how concession and consensus once served as pillars of the Republic.

Book Review: “The Last Tsar”– Last Train to Pskov

March 23, 2025
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Historian Tsuyoshi Hasegawa’s towering achievement is to show that, while Nicholas II was betrayed, he lost his throne because he had made it impossible for anyone who loved Russia to be loyal to him.

Book Review: Lutz Seiler’s Vision of German Reunification, “Star 111” — Dropping Stars Thick as Stones

December 26, 2024
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Lutz Seiler’s novel is part of the post-reunification literature landscape, in this case a brilliant exploration of the personal and political viewed through the consciousness of a pensively bedeviled protagonist.

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