Victim of His Own Celebrity: On Richard Schickel’s “The Famous Mr. Fairbanks”
Chris Yogerst reviews Richard Schickel’s “The Famous Mr. Fairbanks: A Story of Celebrity.”...
Victim of His Own Celebrity: On Richard Schickel’s “The Famous Mr. Fairbanks”
Chris Yogerst reviews Richard Schickel’s “The Famous Mr. Fairbanks: A Story of Celebrity.”...
“Cats Are Indescribably Wonderful, Shostakovich’s Fugues Less So”: On Elizabeth Wilson’s “Playing with Fire: The Story of Maria Yudina, Pianist in Stalin’s Russia”
Tim Riley reviews Elizabeth Wilson’s new biography “Playing with Fire: The Story of Maria Yudina, Pianist in Stalin’s Russia.”...
The Forgotten Avant-Gardist: On Robert Leach’s “Sergei Tretyakov”
Edward Tyerman reviews Robert Leach’s new biography, “Sergei Tretyakov: A Revolutionary Writer in Stalin’s Russia.”...
Pragmatic and Passionate, Cunning and Callous: On David S. Brown’s “The First Populist: The Defiant Life of Andrew Jackson”
Daniel N. Gullotta reviews David S. Brown’s new biography, “The First Populist: The Defiant Life of Andrew Jackson.”...
Brilliant Scholar or Predatory Charlatan?: On Jerry Z. Muller’s “Professor of Apocalypse: The Many Lives of Jacob Taubes”
Steven Aschheim reviews “Professor of Apocalypse: The Many Lives of Jacob Taubes,” a new biography by Jerry Z. Muller....
“The Sights and Sounds of Life”: On Matthew Sturgis’s Biography of Oscar Wilde
“Oscar Wilde: A Life” displays an almost Tolstoyan attention to detail....
A Genius on the Wrong Side of History: Tolstoy’s Conflicts and Contradictions
Maria Rubins weighs Tolstoy’s complicated legacy, with the help Andrei Zorin’s new biography and Vadim Shneyder’s “Russia’s Capitalist Realism.”...
An Ontology of Hate: On Shaul Magid’s “Meir Kahane: The Public Life and Political Thought of an American Jewish Radical”
Meir Kahane reveled in hateful tactics and propagated hate as an ontological principle....
An Amazon of the Avant-Garde: On Lynn Garafola’s “La Nijinska: Choreographer of the Modern”
A well-researched biography of a neglected major choreographer of avant-garde dance....
A Private Gentleman: On “The Trials of Harry S. Truman”
Widely despised at the end of his presidency, Harry Truman’s reputation has grown since....
Chekhov Large and Small
Bob Blaisdell examines new biographies of Anton Chekhov by Michael C. Finke and Donald Rayfield....
Resisting the Food Establishment: On Mayukh Sen’s “Taste Makers: Seven Immigrant Women Who Revolutionized Food in America”
Sen has brought to light a stellar cast of culinary experts that readers may not know about but should....