Archive
The complete Open Letters Monthly Archive.
Every correspondent in Moscow wanted to be the first to find Solzhenitsyn after he won the Nobel Prize in 1970. Michael Johnson had that honor - but the great Russian writer wasn’t altogether pleased so see him.
Read MoreThe battle of Passchendaele is remembered as one of the most futile and horrific of the First World War. A new history by Nick Lloyd searches for some method behind the mud and madness.
Read MoreHow did Donald Trump, a vacuous, bigoted sociopath, get to the White House? He did it by being himself.
Read MoreVeteran military historian Victor Davis Hanson writes a broad-scale history of the Second World War.
Read MoreFormer newscaster and sports commentator Keith Olbermann is a new star of YouTube for his strident opposition to President Trump; his new book provides the transcript.
Read MoreA sprawling new history of Iran from the 16th century to the present brings the multi-faceted story of Persia alive.
Read MoreA big, lively new history assesses the troubled life and blighted nature of Bolshevism.
Read MoreThe grand, global history of Communism's century-long reign of terror is the subject of A. James McAdams' authoritative new book.
Read MoreFormer finance minister for Greece Yanis Varoufakis has written a book about his time on the world stage during his country's financial crisis.
Read MoreFormer governor and presidential candidate Mike Huckabee offers a plea for understanding the 'flyover states' where, he claims, real people lead real lives
Read MoreThe rabble-rousing jeremiad is alive and well in the self-publishing world, as this new anti-politician broadside demonstrates!
Read MoreRonald Reagan was the only modern U.S. President to keep a daily journal. Steve Donoghue plumbs The Unabridged Reagan Diaries in search of the diarist’s soul.
Read MoreThey were wealthy, influential, and for two centuries in England they wielded power to rival the king’s … but who were the Earls of Pembroke (and their equally formidable wives)? In Quarrel with the King, Adam Nicolson takes us beyond the pomp, and here Steve Donoghue looks at the politics of family.
Read MoreMillions of people all over the world feed their pets food manufactured under circumstances that would make Upton Sinclair spin in his grave. Sara Shaffer sifts through the ingredients of Marion Nestle’s Pet Food Politics.
Read MoreBefore the pestiferous little Corsican conquered Europe, he tried his hand at Egypt – Steve Donoghue exposes how the general disposes in his review of Paul Strathern’s Napoleon in Egypt.
Read MoreA mere month remains until the most fiercely fought and most historically pivotal American presidential election of the last half-century. In July, Greg Waldmann served up an in-depth look at Republican John McCain. Here, just in time for the election, he does likewise for Democrat Barack Obama.
Read More“It assaults me, and I adore it!” exclaimed Isabella Stewart Gardner of the legendary city of Venice, and legions of visitors have felt likewise. Venetian writer Tiziano Scarpa writes a love-letter to his spellbinding native city. Professor Hugh Seames has the oar.
Read MoreIn covering John McCain’s life and accomplishments, the American press has been, how shall we put it? less than tenacious. There are real stories they’ve yet to explore, or so argues Greg Waldmann in his first piece as Open Letters‘ Politics Editor.
Read MoreThere is so much Tudor fiction in our world today that no one but the Tudors themselves could justify the extent of it. Even Steve Donoghue can’t read it all, but he has read more of it than is healthy, and he reports back in this installment of his “Year With the Tudors.”
Read MoreAn excerpt and dissection of Steve Donoghue’s Tudor novel Boy King
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