Frederick Deknatel, "Histories of a City: the many hands that shaped today's Cairo," The National, 16 September, reviews Nezar AlSayyad's Cairo: Histories of a City.

Randall Stephens interviews "Jack Rakove on Why I Became a Historian," THS Blog, 20 September. This is the first in a series. David Wolf interviews "Brian Leiter on Nietzsche," The Browser, for his recommendation of five essential books on the subject.

Alan Taylor, "World War II: Women at War," In Focus, 11 September, is a remarkable slide show demonstrating how widespread the mobilization of women was. It is Part 13 of Taylor's photography series on WWII. Mark Mazower reviews Ian Kershaw's The End: Hitler's Germany, 1944-45 for the Guardian, 16 September. Stephen Moss features Kershaw's "life in writing." Ibid.

Joan Oleck, "The Oil Kings: How Nixon courted the shah," The National, 16 September, reviews Andrew Scott Cooper's The Oil Kings: How the U.S., Iran, and Saudi Arabia Changed the Balance of Power in the Middle East.

Finally, congratulations to Tiya Miles of the University of Michigan and Jacob Soll of Rutgers, Camden, who have won MacArthur "genius" fellowships.