Wish an 876-page biography could be longer? Not often, but definitely with this one. I don’t know the literature well enough to say for sure, but it sure feels like a definitive take on an important figure of 20th century history. William Taubman combines the virtues of journalist and scholar in his biography of Nikita …
Category: History
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2006/09/26/premature-evaluation-khrushchev-by-william-taubman/
Sep 20 2006
Baltic Framework
Our recent posts on governments in Stockholm and Schwerin are as good a reason as any to highlight Northern Shores, by Alan Palmer. (It’s published in the US as The Baltic.) I had intended to write a premature evaluation, but then I finished the book, which I picked up during a business trip to Helsinki, …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2006/09/20/baltic-framework/
Apr 18 2006
Premature Evaluation: The Hungarians
I suppose I should be happy that there is a recent, one-volume general history of the Hungarians. Their history is not exactly the stuff of bestsellers, even if Hungarians were crucial in everything from computers to the atomic bomb to Hollywood studios. Ten million people, give or take, speaking a non-Indo-European language in and around …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2006/04/18/premature-evaluation-the-hungarians/
Apr 06 2006
Premature Evaluation: The Fatal Shore
What to do when you haven’t finished a book but find yourself with something to say about it? Convention dictates that one should finish a book before reviewing it (although I have my doubts about any number of published reviews), but on the other hand, The Fatal Shore, by Robert Hughes, was published 20 years …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2006/04/06/premature-evaluation-the-fatal-shore/
Mar 16 2006
Wisdom of the Ages
The Roman Empire has won significance, and its rulers became famous and mighty, because numerous nobles and sages from various countries congregated there […] As settlers come from various countries and provinces, they bring with them various languages and customs, various instructive concepts and weapons, which decorate and glorify the royal court, but intimidate foreign …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2006/03/16/wisdom-of-the-ages/
Feb 11 2006
Premature Evaluation: Grace and Power
What to do when you haven’t finished a book but find yourself with something to say about it? Convention dictates that one should finish a book before reviewing it (although I have my doubts about any number of published reviews), but on the other hand, I’m not trying to sell a review of Grace and …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2006/02/11/premature-evaluation-grace-and-power/
Feb 06 2006
Premature Evaluation: On the Brink: The Trouble with France
What to do when you haven’t finished a book but find yourself with something to say about it? Convention dictates that one should finish a book before reviewing it (although I have my doubts about any number of published reviews), but on the other hand, the market for reviews of revised editions of books on …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2006/02/06/premature-evaluation-on-the-brink-the-trouble-with-france/
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2005/10/12/the-con-fusion/
Jul 20 2005
Stasiland
Don’t pick of a copy of Stasiland, by Anna Funder, if you have work to do. I did the first time, and I nearly missed a deadline. I did it again this morning, intending to write a review, and my productivity dropped like a rock again. Consider yourselves warned. It’s not exactly the kind of …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2005/07/20/stasiland/
Jul 18 2005
Two on Turkey
With Turkish accession one of the most important issues facing the European Union, people interested in the question could do much worse than read these two recent, and reasonably short, books that focus on the country: Crescent and Star, by Stephen Kinzer, and The Turks Today, by Andrew Mango. Both illustrate and explain contemporary Turkey, …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2005/07/18/two-on-turkey/
Al Singh
Doug Merrill
Doreen Sheridan
John Pitzel
Lars N. Goldschlager
Laura Eilers
Professor X
Robert Maedgen
Sylvere Ap Leanan
The Shire