Book Reviews

History of Treason cover

A History of Treason: A Bloody History of Britain Through the Stories of its Most Notorious Traitors

The National Archives – Chris Day, Daniel Gosling, Neil Johnston, and Euan Roger. John Blake Publishing, 2022. 432 pages. $29.63.

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You Bet Your Life:  From Blood Transfusions to Mass Vaccination, the Long and Risky History of Medical Innovation  

Paul A. Offit. Basic Books, 2021. 258 pages. $28.00.

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In Praise of Polytheism  

Maurizio Bettini. Translated from the Italian by Douglas Grant Heise. University of California Press, 2023. 164 pages. $24.95.

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Learning to Talk

Hilary Mantel. Henry Holt and Company, 2022. 157 pages. $19.99.

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David Smith: The Art and Life of a Transformational Sculptor

Michael Brenson. Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 2022. 842 pages. $50.00.

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The Gun, the Ship, and the Pen:  Warfare, Constitutions, and the Making of the Modern World 

Linda Colley. Liveright, 2022. 512 pages. $35.00.

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Looking for the Good War:  American Amnesia and the Violent Pursuit of Happiness 

Elizabeth D. Samet. Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2021. 368 pages. $28.00.

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What Lightning Spoke: New & Selected Poems 

Robert Bensen. Bright Hill Press, 2022. 292 pages. $18.95.

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Orwell’s Roses

Rebecca Solnit. Viking, 2021. 308 pages. $28.00.

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Better to See You With: Perspectives on Flannery O’Connor, Selected and New

Marshall Bruce Gentry. Mercer University Press, 2022. 271 pages. $35.00.

Adventurer: The Life and Times of Giacomo Casanova

Leo Damrosch. Yale University Press, 2020. 422 pages. $35.00.

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Saints and Sinners in the Sky: Astronomy, Religion, and Art in Western Culture

Michael Mendillo. Springer-Praxis, 2022. XIII+252 pages. $24.99.