Table of Contents, April 30, 2009 - The New York Review of Books

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Volume 56, Number 7 · April 30, 2009

Adam Kirsch, On the Edge

The Vertigo Years: Europe, 1900–1914 by Philipp Blom

David Hare, Wall: A Monologue

J.M. Coetzee, The Making of Samuel Beckett

The Letters of Samuel Beckett, Volume 1: 1929–1940 edited by Martha Dow Fehsenfeld and Lois More Overbeck

Timothy Snyder, Caught Between Hitler & Stalin

Defiance a film directed by Edward Zwick

Defiance by Nechama Tec, with a foreword by Edward Zwick

Hilary Mantel, The War Against Women

From Eve to Dawn: A History of Women, Volume I: Origins by Marilyn French, with a foreword by Margaret Atwood

From Eve to Dawn: A History of Women, Volume IV: Revolutions and the Struggles for Justice in the 20th Century by Marilyn French, with a foreword by Margaret Atwood

From Eve to Dawn: A History of Women, Volume II: The Masculine Mystique by Marilyn French, with a foreword by Margaret Atwood

From Eve to Dawn: A History of Women, Volume III: Infernos and Paradises, the Triumph of Capitalism in the 19th Century by Marilyn French, with a foreword by Margaret Atwood

Tim Parks, Knock on Wood

The Adventures of Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi, translated from the Italian by Geoffrey Brock, with an introduction by Umberto Eco and an afterword by Rebecca West

Orlando Figes, Putin vs. the Truth

Inside the Stalin Archives: Discovering the New Russia by Jonathan Brent

Ronald Dworkin, Looking for Cass Sunstein

A Constitution of Many Minds: Why the Founding Document Doesn't Mean What It Meant Before by Cass R. Sunstein

W.S. Merwin, Why Some People Do Not Read Poetry (poem)

Martin Filler, Maman's Boy

Le Corbusier: A Life by Nicholas Fox Weber

The Villas of Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret, 1920–1930 by Tim Benton

Le Corbusier and Britain: An Anthology edited by Irena Murray and Julian Osley

Le Corbusier: The Art of Architecture an exhibition at the Barbican Art Gallery, London, February 19–May 24, 2009

Le Corbusier and the Occult by J.K. Birksted

Le Corbusier Le Grand edited by Phaidon editors, with an introduction by Jean-Louis Cohen and chapter introductions by Tim Benton

Le Corbusier and the Maisons Jaoul by Caroline Maniaque Benton

The Rhetoric of Modernism: Le Corbusier as Lecturer by Tim Benton

Andrew Hacker, Can We Make America Smarter?

The Race Between Education and Technology by Claudia Goldin and Lawrence F. Katz

Real Education: Four Simple Truths for Bringing America's Schools Back to Reality by Charles Murray

Taming the River: Negotiating the Academic, Financial, and Social Currents in Selective Colleges and Universities by Camille Z. Charles, Mary J. Fisher, Margarita A. Mooney, and Douglas Massey

Report of the Commission on the Use of Standardized Tests in Undergraduate Admissions

Occupational Outlook Handbook, 2008–2009 Edition by the Bureau of Labor Statistics

Michael Massing, Is It a Great Victory?

The Gamble: General David Petraeus and the American Military Adventure in Iraq, 2006–2008 by Thomas E. Ricks

Gottfried Benn, Herr Wehner (poem)

Michael Dirda, A Family Worth Knowing

Lark and Termite by Jayne Anne Phillips

Mark Danner, The Red Cross Torture Report: What It Means

ICRC Report on the Treatment of Fourteen "High Value Detainees" in CIA Custody by the International Committee of the Red Cross

Joseph J. Feeney, S.J., Paul Mariani, Mark Ford, 'The Poet & the Wreck': An Exchange

Václav Havel, Cui Weiping, Xu Youyu, Remarks by Václav Havel and Two Members of China's Charter 08 at the Ceremony for the Homo Homini Award

Letters

Burton Richter, William Luers, et al. Iran's Other Nuclear Reactor
Xiaorong Li, Václav Havel Honors a Chinese Prisoner
Stephen F. Cohen, Nick Spicer, et al. 'The Russians are Coming?'
The Editors, Corrections
Thomas Harrison, Joanne Landy, et al. Iranian Human Rights Leader Shirin Ebadi in Danger

Contributors

Gottfried Benn (1886–1956) was a prominent German essayist, novelist, and poet. (April 2009)

J. M. Coetzee, who was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 2003, is currently Visiting Professor of Humanities at the University of Adelaide. His new work of fiction, Summertime, from which the piece in this issue is drawn, will be published by Harvill Secker in October. (August 2009)

Mark Danner, longtime staff writer at The New Yorker and contributor to The New York Review of Books, is the author of three books: The Massacre at El Mozote: A Parable of the Cold War; The Road to Illegitimacy: One Reporter's Travels Through the 2000 Florida Recount; and Torture and Truth. Danner's work has been honored with many awards, including a National Magazine Award, three Overseas Press Awards, and an Emmy. In June 1999, he was named a MacArthur Fellow. He is Professor of Journalism at the University of California at Berkeley and Henry R. Luce Professor of Human Rights and Journalism at Bard College. He divides his time between Berkeley and New York. His work is archived at markdanner.com.

Michael Dirda is the author of two collections of essays, Readings and Bound to Please, the memoir An Open Book, and, most recently, Book by Book: Notes on Reading and Life. In 1993 he received the Pulitzer Prize for his reviews and essays in The Washington Post Book World. Before drifting into journalism, Dirda earned a Ph.D. in comparative literature from Cornell University, concentrating on medieval studies and European romanticism.

Ronald Dworkin is Frank Henry Sommer Professor of Law and Philosophy at NYU and Jeremy Bentham Professor of Law and Philosophy at University College London. His books include Is Democracy Possible Here? (2006), Justice in Robes, Sovereign Virtue: The Theory and Practice of Equality, and Freedom's Law. He is the 2007 winner of the Ludvig Holberg International Memorial Prize for "his pioneering scholarly work" of "worldwide impact."

Orlando Figes is Professor of History at Birkbeck College, London University. His latest book is The Whisperers: Private Life in Stalin's Russia. (April 2009)

Martin Filler was the longtime architecture critic of House & Garden until it ceased publication in 2007. He is the co-author, with Olivier Bossiere, of The Vitra Design Museum: Frank Gehry, Architect, and author of Makers of Modern Architecture, based on essays from the New York Review.

Andrew Hacker teaches political science at Queens College. He is currently writing a book on higher education in collaboration with Claudia Dreifus. (April 2009)

David Hare is a playwright and screenwriter. Among his plays are Via Dolorosa, Stuff Happens, The Vertical Hour, and Gethsemane. "Wall" is a slightly shortened version of a monologue first performed by the author on March 12, 2009, at the Royal Court Theatre in London. (April 2009)

Václav Havel, one of the six signers of the statement "Tibet: The Peace of the Graveyard," is former president of the Czech Republic. (May 2008)

Adam Kirsch is a senior editor at The New Republic and a contributing editor to Tablet. He is the author, most recently, of Benjamin Disraeli. (October 2009)

Hilary Mantel is the author of nine novels, including Beyond Black. Her new novel, Wolf Hall, will be published in the US this month. (November 2009)

Michael Massing, a contributing editor of the Columbia Journalism Review, writes frequently on the press and foreign affairs.

W.S. Merwin was born in New York City in 1927 and grew up in Union City, New Jersey, and in Scranton, Pennsylvania. From 1949 to 1951 he worked as a tutor in France, Portugal, and Majorca. He has since lived in many parts of the world, most recently on Maui in the Hawaiian Islands. He is the author of many books of poems, prose, and translations and has received both the Pulitzer and the Bollingen Prizes for poetry, among numerous other awards.

Tim Parks, a novelist, essayist, and translator, is Associate Professor of Literature and Translation at IULM University in Milan. His most recent novel is Dreams of Rivers and Seas.

Timothy Snyder is Professor of History at Yale. His most recent book is The Red Prince: The Secret Lives of a Habsburg Archduke. His new book, Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin, will be published in September 2010.

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