"The disposable academic: Why doing a PhD is often a waste of time," Economist, 16 December, is not news to those who know and may be unwelcome news to those who don't.

Pauline Maier,"Partners in revolution," Washington Post, 19 December, reviews Andrew Burstein's and Nancy Isenberg's Madison and Jefferson. David Sehat at US Intellectual History, 14 December, and Jack Rakove,"American Ratification," Harvard Magazine, Jan/Feb, review Pauline Maier's Ratification: The People Debate the Constitution, 1787-1788. Hat tip.

Nathan Glazer,"Speech Acts," The Book, 20 December, reviews Kenneth L. Marcus's Jewish Identity and Civil Rights in America.

If you haven't seen the NYT's"Immigration Explorer", try it out. Pick a year between 1880 and 2000 and a specific immigrant nationality and it will show you their distribution across the United States. It even has county-level data. Hat tip.

Bill Kaufman,"An Eccentric Evangelist for Ecstatic Bliss," WSJ, 11 December, reviews Leigh Eric Schmidt's Heaven's Bride: The Unprintable Life of Ida C. Craddock, American Mystic, Scholar, Sexologist, Martyr and Madwoman. Hat tip.

Simon Schama,"Driven to Abstraction," FT, 17 December, reviews"Mondrian and De Stijl," an exhibit at the Centre Pompidou in Paris.