John Gray, "Destination Unknown," Literary Review, May, reviews Francis Fukuyama's The Origins of Political Order: From Prehuman Times to the French Revolution.

Richard C. Lewontin, "It's Even Less in Your Genes," NYRB, 26 May, reviews Evelyn Fox Keller's The Mirage of a Space Between Nature and Nurture.

Frederic Raphael, "Mann's Inhumanity to Mann," Literary Review, May, reviews Evelyn Juers's House of Exile: War, Love and Literature, from Berlin to Los Angeles.

Jacob Weisberg, "Obama Mama," Slate, 9 May, reviews Janny Scott's A Singular Woman: The Untold Story of Barack Obama's Mother.

Congratulations to Cliopatria's friend, our former colleague, Manan Ahmed. His new book, Where the Wild Frontiers Are: Pakistan and the American Imagination, will be published by the end of May.

David O'Neill at bookforum and Andrew Hartman at US Intellectual History trumpet the resurrection of The Baffler under the editorial direction of historian John Summers.