“Though every Part gave real Pleasure/The Sum of all used up our Treasure.”
My review of Frank Trentmann's Empire of Things in the New York Review of Books, 25 May 2017.
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2017/05/25/consumer-society-more-is-more/
Prone to quarrel-picking and partial to red-heeled, thigh-high boots paired with an outsized dress sword, the tyrannical army surgeon Dr. James Barry had, it seems, a whole society full of conspirators.
Review of Michael du Preez's and Jeremy Dronfield's Dr. James Barry in the London Review of Books, 2 March 2017.
https://www.lrb.co.uk/v39/n05/deborah-cohen/a-vast-masquerade
Even by the formidable standards of eminent Victorian families, the Bensons were an intimidating lot.
My review of Simon Goldhill's A Very Queer Family Indeed in the March 2017 issue of the Atlantic.
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/03/before-straight-and...
Churchill spent money he did not have -- extravagantly. He relied upon rich acquaintances to bail him out. Still, sometimes the suspicious financial smoke comes only from a cigar.
My review of David Lough's No More Champagne in the January/February 2016 issue of the Atlantic.
www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/01/why-winston-churchill-was-s...
For the Wall Street Journal's "Five Best" series --
The Five Best Books on Parents & Children, 19 December 2015.
Very twentieth-century. (Bedford, Ackerley....)
http://www.wsj.com/articles/deborah-cohen-1450470282
Sonia Purnell's Clementine, reviewed in the Wall Street Journal, 23 October 2015 --
http://www.wsj.com/articles/a-teller-of-hard-truths-1445634275
Indie rock's founding premise – that everyone could be a producer of art and culture, the more inventively off-center the better – is now a staple of the new media of the information age. My piece in the June Atlantic.
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/06/how-indie-rock-chang...
Readers of our American Historical Review critique who downloaded The History Manifesto this past week may have difficulty tracking some of our criticisms to the PDF and HTML that are now posted on the book’s website.
Peter Mandler and I have written a brief rejoinder to David Armitage and Jo Guldi's reply to our critique of The History Manifesto. Our critique and their reply are now available on the AHR's homepage. http://www.historians.org/
Anita Anand's Sophia, reviewed in the Wall Street Journal, 6 February 2015:
http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB22403670989460264059204580427890590994792