In this edifying family history, Stainton (Staging Ground), a descendant of the Scarlett family of Georgia, examines the myths that evolved to mask the cruelty of slavery. Stainton grew up on stories about grateful servants, handsome beaus, blushing belles, fancy balls, and the unfairness of families like the Scarletts that were “good” to their slaves losing their fortunes after the Civil War. But the truth emerges as Stainton delves into the lives of her Georgia ancestors, comparing them along the way with fictitious Gone With the Wind heroine Scarlett O’Hara (who in the novel is a Scarlett on her mother’s side) and real-life heroine Fanny Kemble, a celebrated British actor who married a prominent Georgia slaveowner and published a scathing insider account of plantation life. Kemble’s diaries, among other sources, spotlight how enslaved people feigned loyalty to survive, while white masters “pretended their enslaved workers were contented” and white women “pretended the mixed-race children” on their plantations “had no connection to their husbands.” Stainton writes that “these fictions masked powerful emotions: for African Americans, rage, terror, and shame; for white Americans, fear and shame,” and she paints the Civil War as the boiling point when these emotions were unmasked. Throughout, Stainton keeps up a tangent on her research journey, including a trip to a Gone with the Wind convention. Such personal moments pull readers gracefully along this deep dive into a grim history. (Nov.)

Reviewed on 09/19/2025 | Details & Permalink

“Over the last fifteen years or so, borders have never been out of the news,” observe Papin, head of Le Monde’s infographics and cartography department, and Tertrais (War Without End), deputy director of the Foundation for Strategic Research, in their introduction to this sobering atlas. Noting that “most often, borders are drawn in blood” with only around 50 countries “created by peaceful secession,” the creatorss focus on highly contentious borders, from Kashmir’s “jigsaw of disputes” to numerous maps related to Israel, Gaza, and the Occupied West Bank. The volume does offer some more lighthearted cartographic curios (the world’s most elevated border is on Mt. Everest, between China and Nepal; for centuries, it was standard to mark a maritime border at “the maximum distance that a cannonball could be fired from the coast”) and spotlights less fraught geopolitical redefinitions (e.g., the evolution of Europe’s Schengen area). Still, it’s best at providing a unique view of current flash points and crises, from Covid and Brexit to Ukraine and Taiwan. One fascinating map spotlights the enormous increase in border walls and fences after the Cold War, from “around fifteen” in the postwar period to “more than seventy” today. This offers fine-grained cartographic context to contemporary conflicts. (Oct.)

Reviewed on 09/19/2025 | Details & Permalink

The British Army’s triumphs—and many failings—on D-Day are reexamined in this elegant account. Historian Hastings (Operation Biting) recaps the British landing at Sword Beach, several miles east of the American landing sites. He highlights some extraordinary successes: glider-borne troops crash-landed their flimsy plywood aircraft right beside key bridges and seized them from astonished Germans; innovative amphibious tanks chugged through the waves and came up shooting on the beach. But Hastings also investigates serious flaws. Commanding general Bernard Montgomery’s objective of taking the city of Caen, nine miles inland, on June 6 was too ambitious, he contends, and the general leading the push, K.P. Smith, was too feckless to carry it out. Traffic jams slowed the movement of men and tanks, and lousy radio communications left them uncertain where to go. British infantry, Hastings observes, often froze and went to ground when fired upon; indeed, he paints the typical soldier as “cautious, hesitant, slow, dilatory, fearful of loss,” and extremely reluctant to follow their officers into an attack. Hastings somewhat lamely excuses this timidity as a virtue of democratic “moderation,” with immoderate courage, daring, and self-sacrifice being too German, the product of “suicidalist” Nazi “fanaticism.” Still, with its clear-eyed eschewal of hero-worship, this makes for a rich exploration of a WWII turning point and of the complex psychology of men in battle. (Nov.)

Reviewed on 09/19/2025 | Details & Permalink

After her 23-year marriage ended, food writer Wilson (The Secret of Cooking) was doing laundry when she knocked to the ground the heart-shaped tin she’d used to bake her wedding cake, sparking her to reflect on the hopeful notion of marriage it had once—but no longer—stood for. Exploring how “kitchen objects can have a life of their own,” the author uses items ranging from a salt shaker to corkscrews to investigate impermanence, loss, and what it means to care for a loved one. In “The Kitchen Table,” Wilson mourns her marriage and the family life she and her ex-husband once shared at the dinner table (“The very wood seemed to be full of him, as if his hands had left traces on the grain”). “My Grandfather’s Teapot” finds Wilson ordering a secondhand teapot that she later discovers was designed by a long-dead grandfather to whom she’s able to feel more connected. The strongest essays center Wilson’s personal history (her divorce, her mother’s death, her children aging); less successful are pieces that revolve around objects that were meaningful to others (a pair of “very old tongs shaped like a pair of clapping hands” prized be a pie maker) or expound more conceptually on the notion of objects having special resonance. Still, this contains plenty of poignant moments. (Nov.)

Reviewed on 09/19/2025 | Details & Permalink

“For many viewers, Caesar was television,” writes The Promise and the Dream author Margolick in this lively biography of comedian Sid Caesar (1922–2014). Caesar grew up in Yonkers, N.Y., where his parents ran a struggling luncheonette and rooming house. After a boarder left behind a saxophone, he learned to play it and began performing, moving into comedy shortly after. He was “the unlikeliest of comics: introverted, ill at ease, tongue-tied,” Margolick explains, but early on, people were eager to see him first at resorts and clubs across the U.S. and then on TV. He had “a sophistication born of native intelligence and curiosity” that struck a chord with audiences, Margolick writes, and shaped a comedic style marked by humorous mannerisms, animated facial expressions, and a unique ability to produce sound effects and mimic foreign languages. In the early days of television in the 1950s, he starred in the variety program Your Show of Shows alongside Imogene Coca. With 20 million viewers tuning in weekly to watch him perform sketches and film spoofs, Caesar became “TV’s initial homegrown star.” He went on to perform in other shows like Caesar’s Hour and Sid Caesar Invites You, but ratings fell as television expanded into new markets and the audience changed. Years of doing live TV also exhausted Caesar, who dealt with alcoholism and a pill addiction. Margolick poignantly assesses the influential comic’s career, noting he was TV’s “first great victim and suffer[ed] its most precipitous fall.” Fans will be riveted. (Nov.)

Reviewed on 09/19/2025 | Details & Permalink

Oscar winner Hopkins reflects on his neuroses, addictions, and dedication to his craft in his elegant debut. After constantly struggling at school in 1940s Wales, Hopkins set out to prove to his disappointed parents that he could succeed at something. Fortunately, he had a formidable stage presence and an unstinting devotion to learning technique. Less useful were his belligerent attitude (“Shove your little play and your precious little tin-pot theater right up your stupid squeaky little crack,” he told one director) and prodigious drinking. A 1970s DUI in California finally got Hopkins into AA, but his insecurities and coldness lingered, informing his portrayals of figures like Richard Nixon and Hannibal Lecter. Hopkins’s reminiscences unfold as a series of dramatic scenes that can feel embroidered given their reliance on his memories of lengthy conversations from 70 years ago. Still, the psychological tensions they convey are convincing. His comments on how he develops roles, meanwhile, are full of astute analysis: “I would play one of the cruelest figures in Shakespeare with no trace of bad intent,” he writes of preparing to audition for the role of Iago. “Not raving but delivering a plan with straightforward logic, bringing each member of the audience, one by one, into your confidence.” The result is a rich portrait of the artist as imperfect truth-seeker. Photos. Agents: Byrd Leavell and Albert Lee, UTA. (Nov.)

Reviewed on 09/19/2025 | Details & Permalink

Music journalist Prato (Lanegan) delivers a comprehensive oral history of what he deems “rock’s last truly great movement.” Pulling from conversations with members of such 1990s alt-rock bands as the Pixies, Dinosaur Jr., and Slint (plus figures like musician and actor Fred Armisen, MTV VJ Kennedy, and producer Steve Albini), the author tracks the genre’s evolution. Alt-rock, he finds, began as a reaction to the popular “commercial hair bands” of the 1980s, combining strains of punk, hardcore, and college rock. Embracing distortion and liberal politics, alternative slowly took over the mainstream, aided by the popularity of the Lollapalooza festival and the superstardom of Nirvana. Along the way, alternative also came to serve as an umbrella term for stylistically diverse pocket genres like shoegaze, pop-punk, and riot grrrl. The book also probes alt-rock’s intersection with drugs and addiction, its sometimes retrograde treatment of women, the relationship between major and minor record labels, and its signature guitar styles. It adds up to a multifaceted portrait of a vital chapter in rock history. Photos. (Oct.)

Reviewed on 09/12/2025 | Details & Permalink

In this colorful chronicle, music journalist Gorman (The Story of the Face) traces the eponymous boutique’s rise from quirky, two-room London shop to psychedelia-inflected outfitter of some of rock’s biggest names. The store was founded in 1966 by scenesters Sheila Cohen, a sometimes–film extra who sold secondhand clothing in bazaars; her boyfriend Nigel Waymouth; and John Pearse, a tailor who made bespoke clothing for his stylish friends (the name was picked out by Waymouth, who commented that “we were going to be selling... ‘granny clothes,’ and everyone was talking about tripping, so we thought it was a funny joke”). Granny first sold down its secondhand stock, before introducing flared trousers and floral-patterned fitted jackets. It then joined the ranks of several other “acid-infused” stores, among them Dandie Fashions, whose co-owner Freddy Hornick bought out Granny in 1969 and opened additional stores in Los Angeles and New York (all had closed by 1980). Drawing on interviews with key players (including two of the store’s founders) and Freddy Hornick’s writings, Gorman contrasts Granny’s style philosophy—which focused on tailoring and bespoke clothing—with the concurrent rise of fast fashion, while vividly depicting the “countercultural” appeal that made it a favorite of musicians at the time. Fashion lovers of any generation would do well to pick this up. (Sept.)

Reviewed on 09/12/2025 | Details & Permalink

In this epic account, Bancroft Prize–winning historian Beckert (Empire of Cotton) charts the rise of the modern global economic order. Capitalism’s emergence represents “a fundamental break in human history,” he writes, one that “turned human relations upside down” and “made revolution a permanent feature of economic life.” He also argues that “capitalism was born global”—emerging as it did from international trade, “it was always a world economy.” Beckert’s global perspective emphasizes the “astounding amount of coercion and violence” employed by the “capitalist revolution” in order to overcome “the enormous resistance from both elites and commoners” around the world. Beckert begins his story in modern-day Yemen in the year 1150, when “a new kind of trader rose to prominence” who “stayed put and traded at a distance.” From there, he traces capitalism’s development through paper money, slavery, and the Industrial Revolution. By the mid-19th century, he argues, capitalism had forced a “global reconstruction” that led to a subsequent century of rebellions and massive warfare. Even during the relatively peaceful post-WWII period of decolonization, “an international order” was constructed to promote capitalism’s “mobility” over the rights of newly independent nations. Today, markets continue to expand into new spaces of human life, as “our very attention has become a commodity.” Ultimately, Beckert furnishes ample evidence that “no imperial or totalitarian project has ever come close to capitalism’s success.” An unparalleled work of scholarship that is also a joy to read, this is a monumental achievement. (Nov.)

Reviewed on 09/12/2025 | Details & Permalink

Travel writer Martínez (In the Land of Giants) offers a contemplative account of a year spent on the disappearing island of Buda. Located in Spain’s Ebro river delta, the island is vanishing due to rising sea levels and lack of new sediment deposits. Martínez, one of only two people to sleep on the island (in a “fragile” seaside cabin), spends his days drowsing on the beach and observing the island’s delicate environmental web. He speaks often with the island’s owner, Mateo, who rails against environmental protections that seem to lack understanding of how Buda’s ecosystem actually works. Readers get an in-depth view of Mateo’s politics, history, and love life; indeed, Martínez documents much interpersonal drama amid his grander ruminations on climate change, reporting on the colorful characters who work Buda’s rice fields and eel fisheries. The book can veer into navel-gazing, with musings like “If the Mediterranean could write, I’d ask it to tell a story called The Life of a Wave.” The pace picks up during the interpersonal dramas, and the narrative’s emotional heart lies with the author’s father, who dies during the year. After his death, Martínez finds new vigor in contemplating Buda—which is likewise not going to live forever. There’s much to enjoy here for lovers of nature writing. (Nov.)

Reviewed on 09/12/2025 | Details & Permalink