The Thinking Read
August 11, 2008

Ark of the Liberties

By TED WIDMER
Reviewed by A.C. Grayling

Can America still claim to be a leader in the cause of freedom? Read more...

July 21, 2008

Gandhi and Churchill: The Epic Rivalry that Destroyed an Empire and Forged Our Age

By ARTHUR HERMAN
Reviewed by A.C. Grayling

A look at two of the most influential progeny of Britain?s imperial culture, and how they shaped a century. Read more...

July 03, 2008

The Return of History and the End of Dreams

By ROBERT KAGAN
Reviewed by A.C. Grayling

An analysis of the global power struggles to come. Read more...

June 25, 2008

The Man Who Loved China

By SIMON WINCHESTER
Reviewed by A.C. Grayling

A life of the man who unveiled a great culture?s learning to the West. Read more...

April 03, 2008

A History of Histories: Epics, Chronicles, Romances and Inquiries from Herodotus and Thucydides to the Twentieth Century

By JOHN BURROW
Reviewed by A.C. Grayling

Is the writing of history a science of precision, or the artful crafting of a tale? Read more...

February 28, 2008

After Tamerlane: The Global History of Empire since 1405

By JOHN DARWIN
Reviewed by A.C. Grayling

A scholar of empire examines the many civilizations that laid claim to global dominance. Read more...

February 08, 2008

God's Crucible: Islam and the Making of Europe, 570 to 1215

By DAVID LEVERING LEWIS
Reviewed by A.C. Grayling

A new examination of the Islamic role in the evolution of Europe's identity. Read more...

About the Columnist
A. C. Grayling is an author, playwright, reviewer, cultural journalist, and professor of philosophy at London University. The most recent of his many books are Towards the Light of Liberty and The Choice of Hercules. His play Grace was recently performed in New York City.
Daybook

June 18: George Orwell's "As One Non-Combatant to Another" was published on this day in 1943. Orwell's poem arguing against pacifism quotes from Churchill's "finest hour" speech, delivered to Parliament and the nation on this day in…

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Previously in Daybook
In the Margin

Very few debut novels exhibit the charm, assurance, emotional depth and bravura fabulation which the lucky reader will discover in Helene Wecker's

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Earlier Posts
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The Long List
Books, CDs, DVDs to know about now
Hour of the Red God

In this searing African crime novel, former Maasai warrior Detective Mollel must defy a corrupt Nairobi government to solve the case of a murdered tribe woman.

The Wonder Bread Summer

This Tarantino-esque thriller finds shop girl Allie and a Wonder Bread bag full of cocaine on the run from a vindictive hit man - after she discovers her dress shop is a front for a narcotics ring.

 

The Redeemer

Christmas caroling turns deadly in this new Scandinavian thriller, where detective Harry Hole must travel from Oslo to former Yugoslavia to track the perp of the holiday homicide.