When read together, Venice from the Water and Venice & Vitruvius present a multi-sided picture of the complex history and fate of the famous floating city of Venice. In many ways, the books complement one another, engaging in the same subject through different perspectives and offering interrelated conclusions. This dynamic
It would be no exaggeration to say that Romanian novelist Norman Manea is one of the most celebrated contemporary Eastern European writers in the Western literary world. His impressive collection of cultural and literary awards currently includes the MacArthur Fellowship (U.S.), the Nonino International Literary Prize (Italy), the Prix Médicis
Sarah Underwood— Recent events have reminded us how difficult it was in the past, and often still is today, for people to speak openly about their ideas. From the Occupy Wall Street movement to the Arab Spring, public declaration of belief and protest continue to appear regularly in headlines. It
Ellen Elias-Bursać, editor of Vlada Stojiljkovic‘s translation of Ranko Marinkovic‘s 1965 novel Cyclops, writes on the special and playful relationship formed between author and translator by their respective attentions to wit, banter, and humor, along with excerpts from the text. Like many previously published titles in the Margellos World Republic of
Ivan Lett— Judith Walkowitz is my kind of historian. She’s interested in the same kinds of topics as I am: cultural history, social history, women’s history, and applies them to my favorite time and place: early twentieth-century London. Walkowitz’s new book, Nights Out: Life in Cosmopolitan London, published this week,
John France— Not long after the Second World War during which I was born, in about 1947 or 48, I startled my assembled family by saying that I wished the war was still on. The cries of shock which this evoked overwhelmed me, and I persisted no further with this
Seventy years after the end of WWII, we tend to associate Hitler and the German Reich with destruction. Yet, as Hitler rose to power in the 1920s and 1930s, construction was a key part of his political agenda, a fact that Thomas Friedrich makes clear in Hitler’s Berlin: Abused City,
The United States Supreme Court is, in the words of today’s New York Times headline, up against a “momentous test.” As most Americans are aware, the justices are hearing arguments about the constitutionality of requiring citizens to obtain health care: the “mandate” that is one of the central components of
At first glance, being a sixteenth-century lord doesn’t sound half bad—live in a castle, commission vast paintings and sculptures, and occasionally cast a vote to elect a Holy Roman Emperor. Easy, right? Wrong. In The Serpent and the Lamb: Cranach, Luther, and the Making of the Reformation, historian Steven Ozment
Was Maximilien Robespierre (1758-94) a heroic martyr of the French Revolution, or a ruthless tyrant? In his new biography Robespierre: A Revolutionary Life, Peter McPhee combines new research and a deep understanding of the French Revolution to provide a fresh and nuanced portrait of one of history’s most controversial figures. Here the author discusses Robespierre, and explains the