In this valuable study, Caitlin Rosenthal isolates an assortment of business practices and technologies that reflect the sophistication of New World plantation economies — dispelling myths of their romantic crudeness.
Books
Book Review: “The Feral Detective” — Strictly From Hunger
Farcical fight and sex scenes might be forgivable, but the “mystery” is so barely there it utterly fails to engage — and that’s lethal to a novel in this genre.
Book Review: The Lives They Wrote
Two autobiographies by women who had some experience in legitimate theater, but they each gave their strongest allegiance to dance, specifically one choreographer.
Book Review: John Hersey — Reporting Truthfully, at All Costs
John Hersey emerges in this book as a disciplined journalist who held steadfast to an admirably singular goal.
Book Review: “Necropolis” — A Book of the Russian Literary Dead
This memoir offers an invaluable, broad look at intellectual Russia before and after the revolutions of 1917.
Book Review: Walter Gropius — The Very Human Face of the Visionary Founder of the Bauhaus
Award-winning author and critic Fiona MacCarthy is out to change wrong-headed perceptions of Walter Gropius in her biography. And she succeeds.
Book Review: “The Ruins of Ani” — Into the Mystic
The Ruins of Ani illuminates one of those rare places that leaves visitors feeling they might have to dust off the word mystical to describe the experience.
Book Review: “In Search of Stonewall” — Illuminating Queer History
The essays here give readers an eyewitness glimpse into mid-century queer life will intrigue (if not shock) younger LGBT+ people.
Book Review: “The Club” — When One Lived for Good Conversation
The Club is an entertaining and absorbing journey to another century, when the art of communication and the spirit of thoughtful engagement attracted men and women of acute sensibilities.
Book Review: “The Ideas That Made America” — Not Made in America
Jennifer Ratner-Rosenhagen’s The Ideas That Made America provides an exciting, if quicksilver, tour through intellectual history.