As Ed Kilgore noted yesterday, the Washington Monthly is unique in its devotion to reviewing the latest books on politics, policy and public affairs. If politics is your passion—and if you’re reading this blog, I presume it is—then you really should be reading our reviews (expertly provided, I should add, by our book review editor–and my wife of 25 years–Kukula Glastris). In fact, calling them “reviews” often doesn’t do them justice—many are extensively reported essays and analytic pieces, and some of the best thinking and most delightful writing in the magazine can be found in them.
This past year, we published over two dozen reviews, on everything from the space program to the origins of the American Left. You’ll find links to a sampling below. If you already read our reviews, or if you take a look here and like what you see, I hope you’ll consider supporting us. We’re in the midst of our annual year-end fundraising drive, so click here and toss in a few bucks—$10, $20, $30, $50, whatever you can afford. Donations to the Monthly are tax-deductible—we’re a non-profit outfit, and really appreciate and rely on the help we get from readers to continue to do what we do.
Dumbing Down Darwin
Robert Frank’s effort to explain the lessons of evolution without offending libertarian sensibilities.
By James K. Galbraith
They Shall Reap the Whirlwind
How religious zealots in the Israeli government are supporting a new generation of extremist settlers who hate the Israeli government.
By Joshua Hammer
From William Lloyd Garrison to Barry Commoner
Why the left’s despair over Barack Obama has deep historical roots.
By Jacob Heilbrunn
Goodnight Moon
Will America ever escape the shadow of Apollo?
By Charles Homans
Tiller’s Killer
What the murder of a late-term abortion doctor does and does not say about the anti-choice movement.
By Ed Kilgore
Bangkok on the Nile
Middle East reformers would do well to study Thailand for lessons in how not to build a democracy.
By Joshua Kurlantzick
Valley Forged
Early American counterfeiters and their heirs on Wall Street.
By Jamie Malanowski
Justice Served
U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens’s thirty-five-year tenure was marked by intellectual rigor, lack of pretension, and the firm belief that absolutism had no place on the bench.
By Michael O’Donnell
The Great Terror
In his masterful new history, Timothy Snyder portrays Stalin’s and Hitler’s mass exterminations as flip sides of the same genocide—one that was both more horrible and less unique than we thought.
By Benjamin Wallace-Wells
