In Search of a Realistic Utopia
Review: Daniel Chandler, Free and Equal:What Would a Fair Society Look Like? In 1971, John Rawls published A Theory of Justice, a book frequently described as the 20th century’s greatest […]
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Tom Peebles
Thomas H. Peebles is a retired Department of Justice attorney living in Vendée, France. He regularly reviews recent works on history, politics, political theory and literature at tomsbooks.wordpress.com. He holds degrees from Dartmouth College (A.B), London School of Economics (M.Sc.), University of Detroit School of Law (J.D), and Stanford Law School (J.S.D). At LSE he studied the “History of Political Thought” under Michael Oakeshott. His dissertation at Stanford examined the emergence in the period 1890-1920 of the idea of the federal constitution as a flexible and evolving instrument. He worked and studied for a year at the Faculté de Droit de Clermont-Ferrand, and was a Fulbright grantee at the Université de Paris II (Assas). At the Department of Justice, he worked on DoJ overseas rule of law assistance programs, serving in US Embassies in Haiti, Bulgaria and Benin. At DoJ HQ, he served as Regional Director for DoJ assistance programs in Central and Eastern Europe.Battling for Hong Kong’s Soul
Review: Louisa Lim, Indelible City: Dispossession and Defiance in Hong Kong, (Riverhead Books, 2022) When the United Kingdom turned control of Hong Kong over to the Peoples’ Republic of China […]
MoreWeaving together Humanism’s many colored threads
Review: Sarah Bakewell, Humanly Possible: Seven Hundred Years of Humanist Freethinking, Inquiry, and Hope (Chatto & Windus, 2023) The British writer Sarah Bakewell is a proven master at presenting […]
MoreCan an Adjective Transform Our Politics?
Review: Michael Walzer, The Struggle for a Decent Politics: On “Liberal” as an Adjective (Yale University Press) Michael Walzer is among America’s most distinguished political philosophers. Throughout his long career, […]
MoreFrom decolonization to the rule of law
Review: Philippe Sands, The Last Colony: A Tale of Exile, Justice and Britain’s Colonial Legacy (Weidenfeld & Nichols, 2022) Testing Britain’s Commitment to Decolonization and the Rule of Law […]
MoreA modern Thoreau? Orwell and the politics of nature
Review: Rebecca Solnit, Orwell’s Roses (Penguin Random House) “In the spring of 1936, a writer planted roses.” Thus begins Rebecca Solnit’s Orwell’s Roses. Six other chapters in this quirky work […]
MoreTenacity, optimism, and the fight for equal rights
Review: Martha Jones, Vanguard: How Black Women Broke Barriers, Won the Vote, and Insisted on Equality for All (Basic Books) In their relentless quest for full equality in the United […]
MoreSo Much in Common, So Little Common Ground
Review: Kei Hiruta, Hannah Arendt & Isaiah Berlin: Freedom, Politics, and Humanity (Princeton University Press) Hannah Arendt (1906-1975) and Isaiah Berlin (1909-1997), two of the 20th century’s most […]
MoreA New Form of Autocracy?
Review: Moisé Naím, The Revenge of Power: How Autocrats Are Reinventing Politics for the 21st Century (St. Martin’s Press) Less than a week before the recent mid-term elections in […]
MoreRestitution and the legacy of empire
Review: Dan Hicks, The Brutish Museums: The Benin Bronzes, Colonial Violence and Cultural Restitution (Pluto Press), and Bénédicte Savoy, Africa’s Struggle for Its Art: History of a Postcolonial Defeat, translated […]
MoreAfter the Romanovs: Russian Exiles in Paris
A book review of Helen Rappaport’s After the Romanovs: Russian Exiles in Paris From the Belle Epoque Through Revolution and War (St. Martin’s Press, 2022). Paris is “full of Russians […]
MoreThe Chancellor
This is a book review of Kati Marton’s The Chancellor: The Remarkable Odyssey of Angela Merkel (Simon & Schuster, 2021). Many can plausibly claim to have had a hand in […]
MoreOf Fear and Strangers: A History of Xenophobia – Review
A review of George Makari’s Of Fear and Strangers: A History of Xenophobia (W.W. Norton and Company, 2021). The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines “xenophobia” as a “fear and hatred of […]
MoreThe Rise and Fall of Self-Determination – Book Review
A book review of Adom Getachew’s Worldmaking after Empire: The Rise and Fall of Self-Determination (Princeton University Press, 2019.) As World War II ended, European colonial empires of the 19th […]
MoreReview: Paul Sabin’s “Public Citizens”
A book review of Paul Sabin’s Public Citizens: The Attack on Big Government and the Remaking of American Liberalism (W.W. Norton & Co., 2021) 1965 marked the highpoint for […]
More‘The Tyranny of Merit: What’s Become of the Common Good?’
A book review of Michael J. Sandel’s The Tyranny of Merit: What’s Become of the Common Good? (Penguin, Allen Lane, 2021). “Those who work hard and play by the rules […]
MoreThe House of Fragile Things: Jewish Art Collectors and the Fall of France
A book review of James McAuley’s The House of Fragile Things: Jewish Art Collectors and the Fall of France (Yale University Press, 2021). In The House of Fragile Things, Washington […]
More“Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present”
A book review of Ruth Ben-Ghiat’s Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present (Norton, 2020) In late November of this year, the Stockholm-based International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) […]
More“Nazi Wives: The Women at the Top of Hitler’s Germany”
A book review of James Wyllie’s Nazi Wives: The Women at the Top of Hitler’s Germany (St Martin’s Press, 2019). Within the proliferation of literature on seemingly every aspect of […]
More“The Arab Winter: A Tragedy”
A book review of Noah Feldman’s The Arab Winter: A Tragedy (Princeton University Press, 2020). 2011 was the year of the upheaval known as the ‘Arab Spring,’ a time when […]
More“On Love and Tyranny: The Life and Politics of Hannah Arendt”
A book review of Ann Heberlein’s On Love and Tyranny: The Life and Politics of Hannah Arendt. Translated from Swedish by Alice Menzies (Pushkin Press, 2021). Before she became a celebrated New […]
MoreBook Review: Shakespeare in a Divided America (James Shapiro)
James Shapiro, Shakespeare in a Divided America: What His Plays Tell Us About Our Past and Our Future (Penguin Press, 2020) In June 2017, New York City’s Public Theater […]
MoreKathryn Sikkink’s “The Hidden Face of Rights”
Kathryn Sikkink, The Hidden Face of Rights: Toward a Politics of Responsibilities (Yale University Press, 2020) Kathryn Sikkink, Professor at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, is one of the […]
More“The Subversive Simone Weil: A Life in Five Ideas”
Robert Zaretsky, The Subversive Simone Weil: A Life in Five Ideas (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2021) Simone Weil is considered today among the foremost twentieth-century French intellectuals, on par […]
More“Scots and Catalans”: Comparing separatisms
Review of J.H. Elliot, Scots and Catalans: Union and Disunion (Yale University Press). Are the United Kingdom and Scotland barreling toward a crisis over Scottish independence of […]
MoreWhen Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X met
Martin Luther King, Jr., and Malcolm X met only once, a chance encounter at the US Capitol on March 26, 1964. The two men were at the Capitol to […]
MoreCan democracy work?
Did American democracy survive the presidency of Donald Trump? The question seems sure to occupy historians, commentators and the public during the administration of Joe Biden and beyond. If nothing […]
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