From ARPA, a review of The Costello Memoirs by Peter Costello and Howard’s End: The Unravelling of a Government by Peter van Onselen and Philip Senior. Every fool knows it’s a job for government: With the market having failed to restrain managers, it is no surprise that people have turned to the one institution they think can. From Geist, an article on the art of doing nothing. Funny or what: Can any English-language book top Decline and Fall for laughs? Paul Kennedy on how "soft power" can always be outmuscled. From The Hill, an article on male bonding over politics. What Nehru owed to Tagore: Like the poet, the politician saw India as a melange of cultures, without any single dominating essence. Carl Zimmer on Walter Alvarez's catastrophic career. The cautionary tale of stressed-out bunnies: Could the seminal life cycle of snowshoe hares be explained by shell shock? Scott McLemee reviews The Writer as Migrant by Ha Jin. Overland travel is back on the map — the Man in Seat 61 chooses his favourite scenic train journeys around the world. A review of The Sun and the Moon: The Remarkable True Account of Hoaxers, Showmen, Dueling Journalists, and Lunar Man-Bats in Nineteenth-Century New York by Matthew Goodman. Did Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson love each other? Annette Gordon-Reed tackles one of American history’s thorniest questions.
