Robert Bateman on Victor Davis Hanson's Carnage and Culture, Part I. Victor Davis Hanson (scroll down) replies. Bateman on Hanson's Carnage and Culture, Part II, Cannae.

Malise Ruthven,"How to Understand Islam," NYRB, 8 November, reviews John Kelsay's Arguing the Just War in Islam, Hans Küng's Islam: Past, Present, and Future, Michael Bonner's Jihad in Islamic History: Doctrines and Practice, Ayaan Hirsi Ali's Infidel, and Oliver Roy's Secularism Confronts Islam. As Manan observes, the"how to understand Islam" industry ought to consult someone who is actually a believer.

François Furstenberg,"Bush's Dangerous Liasons," NYT, 28 October, tracks the origin of the term"terrorism" to the French Revolution. A"terroriste" was one who ruled during"the Great Terror."

Binghamton University's conference,"Black Liberation and the Spirit of ‘57" on 2-3 November will interest Africanists, Caribbeanists, and Americanists. You can read its papers by Robert Darden, Jacques Depelchin, Alex Dupuy, David Garrow, William Martin, and Elizabeth Schmidt here. I've read Darden's excellent"Sam Cooke, ‘You Send Me', and the American Highway."

Will Dunham,"AIDS virus invaded U.S. from Haiti: Study," Reuters, 29 October, is a fascinating look at the attempt to track the early history of an epidemic.

John Feffer's"Big Red Checkbook," Nation, 5 November, is taken severely to task in"Bad History: The Nation and the unobserved rise and decline of Empire," Jottings from the Granite Studio, 21 October.