Sophie Roell interviews "Mike Dash on Hidden History," The Browser, 7 December, for his recommendation of five remarkable books illustrating Dash's claim that the most interesting history is textbook-marginal.

Ingrid D. Rowland, "The Crass, Beautiful Eternal City," NYRB, 22 December, reviews Robert Hughes's Rome: A Cultural, Visual, and Personal History. Tony Perrottet, "The Secret City," Slate, 5-8 December, is a series on secrets of Vatican City.

Malise Ruthven, "The Revolutionary Shias," NYRB, 22 December, reviews Hamid Dabashi's Shi'ism: A Religion of Protest.

Ferdinand Mount, "The extraordinary life of Lord Castlebrag," TLS, 7 December, reviews John Bew's Castlereagh: Enlightenment, war and tyranny. Richard Drayton reviews Richard Gott's Britain's Empire: Resistance, Repression and Revolt for the Guardian, 7 December.

Nathaniel Stein for the New Yorker, 29 November, and Julia M. Klein, "The Best of Dickens's Life and Times," WSJ, 8 December, review "Charles Dickens at 200," an exhibit at Manhattan's Morgan Library & Museum.

Matthew Price, "Mallory expedition: death on Everest," The National, 8 December, reviews Wade Davis's Into the Silence: The Great War, Mallory, and the Conquest of Everest.

Walter Russell Mead, "The Age of Hamilton," Via Meadia, 6 December, argues for "a revival of the Jeffersonian element in American political thought and practice."

In Richard Vinen, "Bring the Iron Lady Back," NYT, 7 December, the King's College historian and author of Thatcher's Britain: The Politics and Social Upheaval of the 1980s calls for a revival of Thatcher's conservative leadership.