The Giants' Shoulders #43, the history of science carnival, is up at The Dispersal of Darwin.

Steven Pearlstein reviews Niall Ferguson's Civilization: The West and the Rest for the Washington Post, 13 January. It's a book in search of an editor, he says; even, in search of an author.

Patricia Cohen, "A Grim Aspect of Modernity (and a Breezy Tour)," NYT, 18 January, reviews Cullen Murphy's God's Jury: The Inquisition and the Making of the Modern World. Elizabeth Lowry, "Visions of the Arabian Nights," TLS, 18 January, reviews Robert Irwin's Visions of the Jinn: Illustrators of the Arabian Nights.

Jennifer Schuessler, "Online Fracas for a Critic of the Right," NYT, 18 January, features hostile early press reaction to Corey Robin's The Reactionary Mind and the internet pushback at Cliopatria, Crooked Timber, and U. S. Intellectual History.

Marc Wortman, "Red Tails Overlooks the Story of America's First Black Pilots," Daily Beast, 16 January, tells the story of African American pilots before World War II's Tuskegee Airmen.

Richard Davenport-Hines, "Survivors of the Ritzkrieg," TLS, 16 January, reviews Matthew Sweet's The West End Front: The wartime secrets of London's grand hotels.

David Greenberg, "It's A Man's World," The Book, 19 January, reviews Chris Matthews's Jack Kennedy: Elusive Hero. Why is best-selling American political biography so vapid?

Jonathan Benthall, "Islam and the West," TLS, 18 January, reviews seven recent books on the subject.

Thomas E. Hachey and Robert K. O'Neill, "College has fought to deny access to interview materials," Irish Times, 19 January, prompts charges of "Obvious and Dangerous Lies from Boston College," Chris Bray, 19 January.

Jonathan Turley, "10 reasons the U.S. is no longer the land of the free," Washington Post, 13 January, ought to be read, pondered, and motivating.