More Noted Things

Things Past: Luke Slattery,"In Search of Western Civilization's Lost Classics," The Australian, 6 August, looks at what we are learning from the library that was both destroyed and preserved by the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 CE.

Wolf Howling, 9 August, has a History Linkfest – a spontaneous history carnival.

Joseph Epstein,"Low Deeds and High IQ," WSJ, 8 August, reviews Simon Baatz's For the Thrill of It: Leopold, Loeb, and the Murder that Shocked Chicago. Hat tip.

Zadie Smith,"E. M. Forster, Middle Manager," NYRB, 14 August, reviews Mary Lago, Linda K. Hughes, and Elizabeth MacLeod Walls, eds., with a foreword by P.N. Furbank, The BBC Talks of E.M. Forster, 1929–1960.

Things Current: Joshua Green,"The Hillary Clinton Memos," Atlantic Monthly, 5 August, and"The Front-Runner's Fall," Atlantic Monthly, September, release and interpret internal documents from the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign.

Robert Kagan,"Putin Makes His Move," Washington Post, 11 August, argues that the Russian move into Georgia is Putin's return to history and renewed empire. KC Johnson criticizes Kagan's historical analogy here; and Anatol Lieven,"Analysis: roots of the conflict between Georgia, South Ossetia and Russia," London Times, 11 August, makes a modest counter- argument: that this struggle is rooted in history and anyone paying attention ought to have anticipated it.