Brittany M. Llewellyn and Alexandra Perloff-Giles,"Slavery Ties Left Unexplored," Harvard Crimson, 25 April, reports that President Drew Gilpin Faust has no plans for the University to follow the examples of Brown, Yale, William & Mary, and the universities of Alabama, North Carolina and Virginia to study the institution's indebtedness to American slavery.

Nancy Zaroulis,"The Man Who Invented Mars," Boston Globe, 27 April, revisits the life and work of Percival Lowell, who in the late 19th century popularized the notion that there's life elsewhere in the universe. Hat tip.

Michael Dirda reviews John Stapes's The Several Lives of Joseph Conrad for the Washington Post, 27 April.

David Remnick,"Blood and Sand," New Yorker, 5 May, reviews Benny Morris's 1948: A History of the First Arab-Israeli War.