Monthly Archives: November 2023

Robert Zaretsky, The Subversive Simone Weil: A Life in Five Ideas – University of Chicago Press, 2021, paperback 2023 Known as the “patron saint of all outsiders,” Simone Weil (1909–43) was one of the twentieth century’s most remarkable thinkers, a … Continue reading →

Henri Hubert’s History of the Celtic Peoples (which contains two of his French books in translation); Karl Meyer and Sharon Brysac, Tournament of Shadows: The Great Game and the Race for Empire in Asia; Gören Larsson (ed.), The Legacy, Life … Continue reading →

Vladimir Hamed-Troyansky, Empire of Refugees: North Caucasian Muslims and the Late Ottoman State – Stanford University Press, February 2024 Between the 1850s and World War I, about one million North Caucasian Muslims sought refuge in the Ottoman Empire. This resettlement … Continue reading →

Burak Kadercan, Shifting Grounds: The Social Origins of Territorial Conflict – Oxford University Press, October 2023 Territory has always played a key role in the origins, conduct, and consequences of armed conflict. For territories to exist in any meaningful sense, … Continue reading →

Gianna Englert, Democracy Tamed: French Liberalism and the Politics of Suffrage, Oxford University Press, April 2024 Does good democratic government require intelligent, moral, and productive citizens? Can our political institutions educate the kind of citizens we wish or need to … Continue reading →

Mara van der Lugt, Dark Matters: Pessimism and the Problem of Suffering – Princeton University Press, paperback September 2023 In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, philosophers engaged in heated debates on the question of how God could have allowed evil and suffering in … Continue reading →