Anthony Grafton,"Scholars of the World Unite!" National Interest, Jan/Feb, reviews Andrew Hacker's and Claudia Dreifus's Higher Education? How Colleges Are Wasting Our Money and Failing Our Kids—and What We Can Do about It and Mark C. Taylor's Crisis on Campus: A Bold Plan for Reforming Our Colleges and Universities.

Patricia Cohen,"Conversation Across Centuries With the Father of All Bloggers," NYT, 17 December, reviews Sarah Bakewell's How to Live; Or a Life of Montaigne in One Question and Twenty Attempts at an Answer.

Sarah J. Young,"Russians in London: Alexander Herzen, with a note on Nikolai Ogarev," Sarah J. Young, 28 November, is a chapter in her e-text series,"Russians in London".

Garrison Keillor,"Mark Twain's Riverboat Ramblings," NYT, 16 December, reviews Harriet Elinor Smith, ed., Autobiography of Mark Twain, I.

Peter Bergen,"The Generals' Victory," The Book, 16 December, reviews Bob Woodward's Obama's Wars.

Finally, alas, farewell to The Edge of the American West, which won a Cliopatria Award for Best Group Blog in 2008.