Xavier Marquez, "Flattery Inflation," Abandoned Footnotes, 14 December, looks at competitive flattery in tyrannies, ancient and modern.

Allan Mallinson, "Servants To Masters," WSJ, 20 December, reviews Allan Massie's The Royal Stuarts: A History of the Family that Shaped Britain. Jonathan Lopez, "A Peaceable Canvas," WSJ, 17 December, reviews Anthony Bailey's Velázquez and the Surrender of Breda.

Barbara Spindel for the Barnes and Noble Review, 30 November, and Ruth Graham, "The Road to the Pill," WSJ, 17 December, review Jean Baker's Margaret Sanger: A Life of Passion. Heller McAlpin reviews Alexandra Harris's Virginia Woolf for the Washington Post, 18 December.

Robert Zaretsky, "Dissolution," Tablet, 19 December, reflects on his "life as an accidental Holocaust expert—and why I decided to quit." Owen Matthews, "Haunted By The Gulags' Ghosts," Daily Beast, 19 December, reviews David Satter's It Was a Long Time Ago and It Never Happened Anyway: Russia and the Communist Past.