Anyone who thinks they can predict the consequences of a political assassination is a damn fool.
-- Eric Rauchway,

in Neely Tucker,"Another in the Long Volley of Shots Heard 'Round the World," Washington Post, 28 December.

John Fitzpatrick,"Don't Mention the War," Spiked Review of Books, December, reviews Geoffrey Robertson's presentation of The Levellers: The Putney Debates.

Kenneth T. Jackson,"A Colony with a Conscience," NYT, 27 December, celebrates the 350th anniversary of the Flushing Remonstrance.

Kathryn Shattock,"Long Before Video Cameras, a French Artist Brought Motion to His Images," NYT, 27 December, previews Laurence Chatel de Brancion's Carmontelle's Landscape Transparencies: Cinema of the Enlightenment.

Paul Kennedy,"The Face of Empire," NY Sun, 19 December, reviews Piers Brendon's The Decline and Fall of the British Empire, 1781-1997.

Niall Ferguson,"Different Strokes," Financial Times, 15 December, and Owen Harries,"Anglo-Saxon Attitudes," Foreign Affairs, January/February, review Walter Russell Mead's God and Gold: Britain, America, and the Making of the Modern World. Hat tip.

Robert Dallek,"A Woman of Ambition, Neither Hero Nor Villain," NYT, 27 December, reviews Elisabeth Bumiller's Condoleezza Rice: An American Life, A Biography. But, see also: Scott Lemieux's comment on the review at Lawyers, Guns, and Money.