Oxford University Press's
Academic Insights for the Thinking World
Eric Alterman, of “What Liberal Media?” fame and noted blogger on MSNBC.com gave a short review of Restless Giant: The United States from Watergate to Bush vs. Gore by James T. Patterson today. He essentially defers to the judgment of his “old adviser” Paul Kennedy who wrote this review in The Washington Post Book World […]
This is the third of four excerpts from The Fall of Rome by Bryan Ward-Perkins. The first excerpt, “The Disappearance of Comfort,” can be found here: LINK In the post-Roman West, almost all this material sophistication disappeared. Specialized production and all but the most local distribution became rare, unless for luxury goods; and the impressive […]
The NYT Sunday Book Review featured two OUP books on their “Editors’ Choice” page The Pope’s Daughter by Caroline P. Murphy In Search of the Promised Land: A Slave Family in the Old South by John Hope Franklin and Loren Schweninger LINK to review of The Pope’s Daughter. LINKto review of In Search of the […]
Fifty years ago this past Sunday, the brutal slaying of Emmett Till, a fourteen-year-old Chicagoan visiting relatives in the Mississippi Delta, laid bare the raw savagery and blatant disregard for decency and law that permeated the Jim Crow South. When Till’s mother insisted on an open casket funeral and Jet magazine published photos of his […]
An excerpt from The Pope’s Daughter: The Extraordinary Life of Felice della Rovere by Caroline P. Murphy. Read last week’s exceprt HERE. Unlike his predecessor, the new Pope had no ties to Felice and no interest in developing any. For Hadrian, Felice was no treasured memento of Rome’s golden age. She was, rather, a symbol […]
Sunday’s New York Times Book Review section included a review of The Pope’s Daughter by Caroline Murphy. Here’s the final graph of the review by Bruce Boucher: Caroline Murphy has recreated Felice della Rovere’s life with agility and tact. She successfully fleshes out the customs and historical background of her Machiavellian princess, even though there […]
From The Pope’s Daughter: The Extraordinary Life of Felice della Rovere by Caroline P. Murphy. Felice della Rovere (1483? – 1536) was the illegitimate daughter of Pope Julius II, a close ally of Pope Leo X, and one of the most influential women of Renaissance Italy. Napoleone When Felice della Rovere entered the house of […]
James T. Patterson will be touring through New York, Chicago and DC in September for his upcoming book Restless Giant: The United States from Watergate to Bush v. Gore. Restless Giant is the 11th volume in the Oxford History of the United States series which includes Pulitzer Prize winners Battle Cry of Freedom and Freedom […]
There has been vigorous discussion of David Kennedy’s NYTimes Op-Ed (07/25/05) on right-leaning blogs this week, with opinions ranging from the scandalized to the more reasonable, like at redstate.org. Sadly, lost in much of the reaction, is Kennedy’s argument questioning the wisdom of continuing with an all-volunteer army. (He does NOT suggest that Hessian behavior […]
The Karl Rove/Valerie Plame/Judith Miller saga echoes a tune with many refrains. Washington, D.C. has been grappling with leaks to the press ever since the government arrived in 1800–the year that Congress held its first investigation into how the press obtained secret documents. Twice, in 1848 and 1871, the U.S. Senate held reporters prisoners in […]