Reviews
City of the Century
Many moons ago I bought Donald Miller’s City of the Century: The Epic of Chicago and the Making of America as background material for a book proposal I was working on. I stopped the proposal halfway through, when I got the commission to write Mankind: the History of All of Us for the History Channel…
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The Gilded Page
I finally finished reading Mary Wellesley’s The Gilded Page: The Secret Lives of Medieval Manuscripts, which I started reading in late September. The delay is a commentary on the chaos of my life over the last few months, not on the quality of the book, which is fascinating. I’ve read a great deal about illuminated…
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Jonathan Spence and My Introduction to Chinese History
I just learned that eminent Chinese historian (or more accurately, historian of China) Jonathan Spence died on December 25. My world feels a little smaller. I should make it clear that I never took a class with Dr. Spence and never met him personally. Nonetheless, he played a role in my introduction to Chinese history…
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