‘Daughter of the Dragon’ by Yunte Huang review
Daughter of the Dragon: Anna May Wong’s Rendezvous with American History by Yunte Huang explores the discrimination beneath Hollywood’s glamour.
USA
The 50 Years that Made America
Fifty years separate the Boston Tea Party and the Monroe Doctrine. How did a group of British colonies become a self-proclaimed protector of continents within half a century?
‘Eli and the Octopus’ by Matt García review
Eli and the Octopus: The CEO Who Tried to Reform One of the World’s Most Notorious Corporations by Matt García is a human story amid mergers, sales, profits and losses.
The Gunfight at the O.K. Corral Becomes Legend
On 26 October 1881, three men were shot dead in Tombstone, Arizona. A survivor, Wyatt Earp, turned it into a legend.
Why Is the United States Hostile to Socialism?
The question asked by Werner Sombart in 1906 grew in relevance as the 20th century progressed. Why are leftist politics anathema to Washington – both at home and abroad?
What Killed Kennedy?
Was it the mob? A coup? Cuban dissidents? War hawks? 60 years after the assassination of John F. Kennedy, the theories are still debated. Do any of them hold up?
‘Popularizing the Past’ by Nick Witham review
Popularizing the Past: Historians, Publishers, and Readers in Postwar America by Nick Witham explores the industry of popular history from Daniel Boorstin to Howard Zinn.
‘The Gospel of J. Edgar Hoover’ by Lerone A. Martin review
J. Edgar Hoover, director of the FBI from 1924 to 1972, thought the Bureau’s mission was to defeat the godless forces of liberalism, feminism and civil rights.
‘The Madman in the White House’ by Patrick Weil review
Delusions of grandeur: a ‘psychobiography’ of Woodrow Wilson.
Don’t Look Up
Hawai‘i’s Mauna Kea is among the best places in the world to study the universe, but the construction of a new super telescope is about more than astronomy.