Book Reviews - Wsj.com

Mansion Global
- Mansion Global
Barron's
- Barron's
WSJ+
- WSJ+
Product X
- Product X
- djx
- rt
- f
- r&c
- pe&vc
- wsj
- b
More

The Wall Street Journal

Bookshelf
A Novel That Captures the Lives of the Illegals
Bookshelf
The Great Fall of China
Bookshelf
The First Abolitionist President

Subscriber Content Read Preview

Women on the Verge of Enlightenment
Mara Hvistendahl reviews “In Search of Buddha’s Daughters: A Modern Journey Down Ancient Roads” by Christine Toomey.
Subscriber Content Read Preview

The Dangers of Abandoning Allies
H.R. McMaster reviews “The Unquiet Frontier: Rising Rivals, Vulnerable Allies, and the Crisis of American Power” by Jakub J. Grygiel & A. Wess Mitchell.
Subscriber Content Read Preview

Habits of Highly Productive People
Amy Dockser Marcus reviews “Smarter Faster Better: The Secrets of Being Productive in Life and Business” by Charles Duhigg.
Subscriber Content Read Preview

What’s the Difference Between a Brain and a Computer?
The feeling of being conscious varies from moment to moment and from person to person. Everyone has a distinctive “cognitive gait.” David Eagleman reviews “The Tides of Mind: Uncovering the Spectrum of Consciousness” by David Gelernter.
Subscriber Content Read Preview

The Right to ‘Mobocracy’
Many early Americans thought liberty was inextricably linked with property and thus wanted to restrict the vote to the well-to-do. Henry Olsen reviews “The Fight to Vote” by Michael Waldman.
Subscriber Content Read Preview

The Shale Revolutionaries
Philip Delves Broughton reviews “The Green and the Black: The Complete Story of the Shale Revolution, the Fight over Fracking, and the Future of Energy” by Gary Sernovitz.
Subscriber Content Read Preview

Full-Court Press in North Carolina
Will Blythe reviews “The Legends Club: Dean Smith, Mike Krzyzewski, Jim Valvano, and an Epic College Basketball Rivalry” by John Feinstein.
Subscriber Content Read Preview

After Saddam Was Hanged
Kanan Makiya loved Iraq. His rage and despair at the brutality that has seized his country comes through on every page of “The Rope.”
Subscriber Content Read Preview

What Your Doctor Won’t Tell You
Physicians can’t really be certain if any treatment will help a particular person. But patients are looking for prescriptions, not probabilities.
Subscriber Content Read Preview

Making Miami’s Master Suburb
George Merrick’s grandfather had made his money with Fink’s Magic Oil. It is a natural progression from snake oil to Florida real estate. Stuart Ferguson reviews Arva Moore Parks’s book about the creator of Coral Gables.
Subscriber Content Read Preview

Raising Loneliness to an Art
How six painters and authors transformed urban isolation into lasting art. Ben Downing reviews “The Lonely City: Adventures in the Art of Being Alone” by Olivia Laing.
Subscriber Content Read Preview

An American Revolutionary Loyal to Britain
Franklin’s years in France resulted in military aid and recognition of American independence. His time in London? Slightly less successful. Jeffrey Collins reviews “Benjamin Franklin in London” by George Goodwin.
Subscriber Content Read Preview

We’re All Cheaters Now
The argument that polygamy is natural and monogamy cultural rests on a probably false distinction between nature and culture. Felipe Fernández-Armesto reviews “Out of Eden” by David P. Barash.
Subscriber Content Read Preview

Before There Was Halliburton, There Was Bechtel
Bechtel oversaw infrastructure projects all over the world. But when two executives joined Reagan’s cabinet, conspiracy theories began. Matthew Rees reviews “The Profiteers” by Sally Denton.
Subscriber Content Read Preview

Humanity Hasn’t Got a Chance
AI poker players can beat humans, computer models can predict horse races, and stock trades already move too fast for humans to keep up. Thomas A. Bass reviews “The Perfect Bet” by Adam Kucharski.
Subscriber Content Read Preview

Razing Eden to Make Malibu
The battle for Malibu included marauders on horseback, bootleggers, sheep slaughtering and dynamite. Nancy Rommelmann reviews “The King and Queen of Malibu” by David K. Randall.
Subscriber Content Read Preview

Boardroom Brawlers
James Grant reviews “Dear Chairman: Boardroom Battles and the Rise of Shareholder Activism” by Jeff Gramm.
Subscriber Content Read Preview

Where There’s Cannibalism, There’s Culture
J.R. McNeill reviews “A Foot in the River: Why Our Lives Change—and the Limits of Evolution” by Felipe Fernández-Armesto.
Subscriber Content Read Preview

Waging War in Zeros and Ones
The U.S. dominates the fields of hardware and software. But it remains uniquely vulnerable because its so connected to the Internet.
Subscriber Content Read Preview

Who ‘The ’Hood Is Good’ For
The owner of a seedy trailer park earns roughly $447,000 a year. But if the profit were less, would those accommodations remain available?
Subscriber Content Read Preview

Lives of the Selfie-Centered
What do teenagers use their phones for? Bonding, backbiting, bullying—and texting naked pictures. Lots and lots of naked pictures.
Subscriber Content Read Preview

In Defense of Government Snooping
Critics charged that Stellarwind was nearly worthless as an intelligence tool. Hayden has no doubts about the program’s effectiveness.
Subscriber Content Read Preview

How Culture Beat Religion
Evangelicals reject the feminist label, yet they support feminist principles like equal pay for equal work and political equality.
Subscriber Content Read Preview

Trapped by the New Iron Curtain
Romania, having suffered under two of the nastiest dictators of the Soviet period, is now in the crosshairs of Putin’s new cold war.
Subscriber Content Read Preview

The Bridge to Somewhere
Techniques for smoothing the passage of humans and vehicles date to the Romans, whose famous roads were lined with hand-laid stones.
Subscriber Content Read Preview

He Made the Great Leap
Fang Lizhi’s name is banned in China. But everyone there who continues to push for democratic rights owes a debt to the dissident.
Subscriber Content Read Preview

The Power of Positive Thinking
Churchgoers seem to live longer than non-churchgoers—an effect that may have more to do with stress reduction than divine intervention.
Subscriber Content Read Preview

The Enduring Mystery of Sappho
Was Sappho a priestess? A teacher? A wedding planner? Was she even
a ‘lesbian’ in the modern sense of the word?
Subscriber Content Read Preview

The End of the Third World
The rapid rise of China seems to contradict the author’s assertion that democracy is better than autocracy at facilitating rapid economic growth.
Subscriber Content Read Preview

Everyone’s a Critic
Is watching all the ‘Star Wars’ films in a single sitting (‘for purposes of research, naturally’) a reasonable way for an adult to make a living?
Subscriber Content Read Preview

Stumping in Nixon’s Shadow
Nixon was the master triangulator. Clinton adopted the template while enacting welfare reform. W. applied it to expanding Medicare.
Subscriber Content Read Preview

The Rise of Islamic State
Donald Trump and Ted Cruz say they would keep Assad in power to defeat the Syrian jihad. But ISIS is a product of the Assad regime.
Subscriber Content Read Preview

The Prince of the Smugglers
Smuggling was an affirmation of the gospel of free trade—a fundamental tenet of 19th-century liberalism—and a protest against protectionism.
Subscriber Content Read Preview

The Unabomber’s Brother Speaks Out
David Kaczynski looked up to his brother. Ted went to Harvard at 16 and was on the faculty at Berkeley by 25. But then he became a terrorist.
Subscriber Content Read Preview

The Iranians Devoured by the Revolution
The longtime aspiration of Iranian leftists—that gradual, peaceful change could come from within the system—is now a pipe dream.
Subscriber Content Read Preview

Planning for the Unpredictable
Knowing the facts is not the same as knowing the future. Who could have foreseen that the Arab Spring would begin with a fruit vendor?
Subscriber Content Read Preview

The Jihadist Threats From Within
Somewhere between mentally unstable drifters and the superstars of global jihad are lone wolves like the San Bernardino killers.
Subscriber Content Read Preview

A Cold Warrior Haunted by the Bomb
Perry helped introduce GPS and stealth innovations to the U.S. military. But not all military problems have a technological fix.
Subscriber Content Read Preview

A New Dawn for a Dashing Casanova
One of the most erotic yet discreetly hushed works of literature ever written.

Subscriber Content Read Preview

Learning to Look at Gravity
John Gribbin reviews “Black Hole Blues and Other Songs From Outer Space” by Janna Levin. It jiggled the Earth by less than the diameter of an atom.
Subscriber Content Read Preview

What Made Kevin, Kobe and LeBron Great
Will Leitch reviews “Boys Among Men: How the Prep-to-Pro Generation Redefined the NBA and Sparked a Basketball Revolution” by Jonathan Abrams.
Subscriber Content Read Preview

The Real Isabel Archer
In a largely masculine sphere, Constance Fenimore became one of her era’s most praised authors. Randall Fuller reviews “Constance Fenimore Woolson: Portrait of a Lady Novelist” by Anne Boyd Rioux.
Subscriber Content Read Preview

Henry James: The Man Who Went Without
An unmarried expat, James lived only to record in his art the victories
of spiritual decency over grossness, stupidity and wickedness. Joseph Epstein reviews “Autobiographies” by Henry James.
Subscriber Content Read Preview

Romanticizing the Spanish Civil War
Stanley G. Payne reviews “Spain in Our Hearts: Americans in the Spanish Civil War, 1936-1939” by Adam Hochschild.
Subscriber Content Read Preview

Young India Is on the Move
Maxwell Carter reviews “The End of Karma: Hope and Fury Among India’s Young” by Somini Sengupta.
Subscriber Content Read Preview

Helen Simonson Returns to Sussex
Joanne Kaufman reviews “The Summer Before the War,” a novel by Helen Simonson.
Subscriber Content Read Preview

The Real Woodstock
Barry Mazor reviews “Small Town Talk: Bob Dylan, The Band, Van Morrison, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix & Friends in the Wild Years of Woodstock” by Barney Hoskyns.
Subscriber Content Read Preview

Mandelstam Was the Modern Orpheus
Sam Sacks reviews “Voronezh Notebooks” by Osip Mandelstam.
Subscriber Content Read Preview

Allan Massie on the Best New Historical Fiction
Allan Massie reviews “Scarpia,” a novel by Piers Paul Read.
Subscriber Content Read Preview

Meghan Cox Gurdon on the Best New Children’s Books
Meghan Cox Gurdon reviews “Summerlost” by Ally Condie; “Can I eat That” by Joshua David Stein; “Make Way for Ducklings” by Robert McCloskey; and “The Jungle Book: Mowgli’s Story” by Rudyard Kipling.
Subscriber Content Read Preview

Five Best: Ben Downing
The author of ‘Queen Bee of Tuscany: The Redoubtable Janet Ross’ on frauds, fantasists and shape-shifters.
March 19
Subscriber Content Read Preview

What Does It Mean to Have a Mind?
Agency is the ability to act purposefully. Adults and robots have it. Dogs and infants don’t. Daniel J. Levitin reviews “The Mind Club: Who Thinks, What Feels, and Why It Matters” by Daniel M. Wegner and Kurt Gray.
Subscriber Content Read Preview

The Fury of Charlotte Brontë—and Jane Eyre
‘Never was there a better hater,’ ended an early review of ‘Jane Eyre.’ ‘Every page burns with moral Jacobinism.’ Jonathan Rose reviews “Charlotte Brontë: A Life” by Claire Harman.
Subscriber Content Read Preview

Selling Babe Ruth Made Sense
In 1920, Ruth smashed a previously unimaginable 54 home runs—and the Yankees were on the path to 27 world championships. Henry D. Fetter reviews “The Selling of the Babe: The Deal That Changed Baseball and Created a Legend” by Glenn Stout.
Subscriber Content Read Preview

How to Build a Baseball Dynasty
Paul Dickson reviews “Stealing Games: How John McGraw Transformed Baseball with the 1911 New York Giants” by Maury Klein.
Subscriber Content Read Preview

The Hipster Odysseus
A Jewish jazzman’s talky, jive-inflected prose inspired the Beats. Martin Riker reviews “Really the Blues” by Mezz Mezzrow and Bernard Wolfe.
Subscriber Content Read Preview

The Incandescent Teresa Wright
In her screen debut, Wright held her own against Bette Davis and earned an Oscar nod. Scott Eyman reviews “A Girl’s Got To Breathe” by Donald Spoto.
Subscriber Content Read Preview

The Strange Defeat of the Royal Navy
Despite its failure to prevent American independence the Royal Navy ended the conflict stronger than ever. Stephen Brumwell reviews “The Struggle for Sea Power: A Naval History of American Independence” by Sam Willis.
Subscriber Content Read Preview

A Blood-Drenched Paradise
With women hitching up their saris to totter in the waves, and a gypsy’s monkey dressed as an Englishman, there is an Alice-in-Wonderland feel to John Gimlette’s “Elephant Complex: Travels in Sri Lanka.”
Subscriber Content Read Preview

Thoreau’s Favorite Flowers
He worked himself to exhaustion recording the flora and fauna around Concord. Danny Heitman reviews “Thoreau’s Wildflowers,” edited by Geoff Wisner and illustrated by Barry Moser.
Subscriber Content Read Preview

Five Best: Adam Sisman
The author of “John le Carré: The Biography” on biographies and memoirs.
Subscriber Content Read Preview

Sam Sacks on the Best New Novels
The sharpest passages of Karan Mahajan’s “The Association of Small Bombs” examine the terrorist mind-set and the demented rationales for mass murder.
Subscriber Content Read Preview

Meghan Cox Gurdon on the Best New Children’s Books
Meghan Cox Gurdon reviews “You Never Heard of Casey Stengel?!” by Jonah Winter and Barry Blitt; and “The Kid From Diamond Street” by Audrey Vernick and Steven Salerno.
March 12
Subscriber Content Read Preview

Nature’s Rules for Elephants, Ants—And Us
From E. coli to elephants, a few simple principles explain why organisms thrive or die. Brian Switek reviews “The Serengeti Rules: The Quest to Discover How Life Works and Why It Matters” by Sean B. Carroll.
Subscriber Content Read Preview

America’s Greatest Volcanic Disaster
Hundreds of miles away, people heard a sonic boom, but those near the volcano heard only trees thudding to the ground. Michael O’Donnell reviews “Eruption: The Untold Story of Mount St. Helens” by Steve Olson.
Subscriber Content Read Preview

Walking the World’s Longest River
For some 4,250 miles, the former paratrooper crosses crocodile-filled swamps, skirts great lakes, pushes through elephant grass and trudges across desert sands. Anthony Sattin reviews “Walking the Nile” by Levison Wood.
Subscriber Content Read Preview

How YHWH Became God
The idea that the Hebrew god once had a consort, Asherah, was a shock to some biblical scholars. Shai Held reviews “The Invention of God” by Thomas Römer.
Subscriber Content Read Preview

When the Silk Road Was the World’s Center
The cities of Gundeshapur in Iran and Kashgar in China had archbishops long before Canterbury. Sadanand Dhume reviews “The Silk Roads: A New History of the World” by Peter Frankopan.
Subscriber Content Read Preview

The Deadliest Campaign in Naval History
By late 1942, U-boats were sinking Allied ships much more quickly than they could be replaced. Leo McKinstry reviews “The Battle of the Atlantic: How the Allies Won the War” by Jonathan Dimbleby.
Subscriber Content Read Preview

How to Build a Broadway Show
A great show needs a star turn, but also an ‘I want’ song to show what makes the main characters go. Ethan Mordden reviews “The Secret Life of the American Musical” by Jack Viertel.
Subscriber Content Read Preview

Sam Sacks on the Best New Fiction
Reviews of Arlene Heyman’s “Scary Old Sex,” Miroslav Penkov’s “Stork Mountain” and Jung Yun’s “Shelter.”
Subscriber Content Read Preview

Five Best: Simon Mawer
The author of “Tightrope” on the experience of war.
Subscriber Content Read Preview

If Sci-Fi Fans Ruled the World
Sci-fi fans will love this ambitious tale about starting a far-star colony. So should everyone else. Tom Shippey reviews “Arkwright” by Allen Steele.
Subscriber Content Read Preview

Meghan Cox Gurdon on the Best New Children’s Books
Is that noise in the night a ghost or a Nazi spy? And where are all the children disappearing to?
Subscriber Content Read Preview

Tom Nolan on the Best New Mysteries
Highly amusing and ultimately moving, Jonathan Lee’s “High Dive” is hardly a thriller in the usual sense.
March 3
Subscriber Content Read Preview

Writers Who Didn’t Go Gentle Into That Good Night
How did Susan Sontag, Sigmund Freud, John Updike and Dylan Thomas face death? Daniel Akst reviews “The Violet Hour” by Katie Roiphe.
Subscriber Content Read Preview

Combat Writing at Its Best
An elite company of soldiers formed in a Baltimore tavern would save the Continental Army in Brooklyn and fight on all the way to Yorktown. Jonathan W. Jordan reviews “Washington’s Immortals” by Patrick K. O’Donnell.
Subscriber Content Read Preview

The Right Way to Disrupt Higher Education
Michael Roth reviews “Wisdom’s Workshop” by James Axtell and “Toward a More Perfect University” by Jonathan R. Cole—two new books about how to fix America’s colleges and universities.
What Hemingway’s ‘A Farewell to Arms’ Left Out
‘War and Peace’ meets ‘The Leopard’ in a novel set among Italian aristocrats during the Great War. Allan Massie reviews “Not All Bastards Are From Vienna” by Andrea Molesini.
Subscriber Content Read Preview

Why Do We Even Think the Fed Is Independent?
The Fed’s holdings earned $116 billion in interest in 2014—almost $90 billion more than in 2001. Kevin A. Hassett reviews “The Power and Independence of the Federal Reserve” by Peter Conti-Brown.
Subscriber Content Read Preview

Untangling the Mysteries of Hair
A strand of hair from Che Guevara’s corpse went to a lone bidder for $119,500. Weird facts abound in Kurt Stenn’s “Hair: A Human History,” reviewed by Moira Hodgson.
Subscriber Content Read Preview

First Ebola. Now Zika. What’s Next?
A nightmare scenario would await if fungi evolved to tolerate the warm blood of mammals. Sandra Hempel reviews “Pandemic” by Sonia Shah.
Subscriber Content Read Preview

Meghan Cox Gurdon on the Best New Children’s Books
Reviews of three young-adult novels by Lindsay Eager; Kathi Appelt and Alison McGhee; and Raymond Arroyo.
Subscriber Content Read Preview

Five Best: Jonathan Bate
The author, most recently, of “Ted Hughes: The Unauthorised Life” recommends books on the Romantics.
Subscriber Content Read Preview

Sam Sacks on the Best New Fiction
Reviews of Sara Baume’s “Spill Simmer Falter Wither”—a novel destined to become a classic of animal communion literature—and Dana Spiotta’s “Innocents and Others.”
Subscriber Content Read Preview

Tom Nolan on the Best New Mysteries
Reviews of Chris Pavone’s jet-propelled thriller “The Travelers” and Samuel Bjørk’s tense “I’m Traveling Alone.”
Subscriber Content Read Preview

The Progressive History of Eugenics
Amity Shlaes reviews “Imbeciles” by Adam Cohen and “Illiberal Reformers” by Thomas C. Leonard.

注目記事ランキング What's This?
閉じる
記事へのアクセス数のほかフェイスブックやツイッターでのシェア回数、メールをもとにWSJ日本版で注目を集めている記事をランキングにまとめています

採用情報
サイトマップ
Copyright ©2016 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved.