Pankaj Mishra's "Watch this man," LRB, 3 November, reviewed Niall Ferguson's Civilization: The West and the Rest. The review led to a very hostile exchange of letters in the London Review of Books (scroll down). Now, Ferguson threatens court action against Mishra.

Dominique Browning, "Real Housewife of the Renaissance," NYT, 25 November, reviews Elizabeth Lev's The Tigress of Forlì: Renaissance Italy's Most Courageous and Notorious Countess, Caterina Riario Sforza de' Medici.

Niranjan Rajadhyaksha, "Beautiful Minds," LiveMint, 25 November, and Michiko Kakutani, "The Economist's Progress: Better Living Through Fiscal Chemistry," NYT, 1 December, review Sylvia Nasar's Grand Pursuit: The Story of Economic Genius.

John Plotz, "This Book Is 119 Years Overdue," Slate, 17 November, and Anne Trubek, "What Muncie Read," NYT, 23 November, explore "What Middletown Read," a database of every loan from Muncie, Indiana's public library from 1891-1902.

Kevin Boyle, "The Not-So-Invisible Empire," NYT, 25 November, reviews Thomas R. Pegram's One Hundred Percent American: The Rebirth and Decline of the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s and Kelly J. Baker's Gospel According to the Klan: The KKK's Appeal to Protestant America, 1915-1930.

Michael Beschloss, "In the Air, On the Sea," NYT, 25 November, reviews Ian W. Toll's Pacific Crucible: War at Sea in the Pacific, 1941-1942.

Ofer Aderet, "Setting the record straight about Jewish mathematicians in Nazi Germany," Haaretz, 25 November, reviews "Transcending Tradition - Jewish Mathematicians in German-Speaking Academic Culture," an exhibit at Tel Aviv's Beth Hatefusoth. Jonathan Yardley reviews Caroline Moorehead's A Train in Winter: An Extraordinary Story of Women, Friendship, and Resistance in Occupied France for the Washington Post, 25 November.

Daisy Fried, "So Much Depends," NYT, 25 November, reviews Herbert Leibowitz's Something Urgent I Have To Say To You: The Life and Works of William Carlos Williams. Michael Dirda reviews Alexander Maitland's Wilfred Thesiger: The Life of the Great Explorer for the Washington Post, 23 November.