The Carnival of Genealogy CIX is up at The Catholic Gene!

Charles Homans, "War Games: A Short History," Foreign Policy, Sept/Oct, tracks seven millenia of war games.

Linda Colley reviews Kwasi Kwarteng's Ghosts of Empire: Britain's Legacies in the Modern World for the Guardian, 2 September. Rana Mitter reviews Julia Lovell's The Opium War: Drugs, Dreams and the Making of China for the Guardian, 2 September.

Adrian Vermeule, "Lawfare from the Bench," The Book, 5 September, reviews Brian McGinty's The Body of John Merryman: Abraham Lincoln and the Suspension of Habeas Corpus.

Mark Lewis, "The Union Martyr," WSJ, 3 September, reviews William M. Adler's new biography of Joe Hill, The Man Who Never Died.

Roger Lewis reviews Anne Sebba's That Woman: the Life of Wallis Simpson, Duchess of Windsor for the Telegraph, 2 September.

Daniel Byman, "Deterring Enemies in a Shaken World," NYT, 4 September, reviews Eric Schmitt's and Thom Shanker's Counterstrike: The Untold Story of America's Secret Campaign Against Al Qaeda.