The New Republic

Colored White: Transcending the Racial Past by David R. Roediger (University of California Press, 323 pp., $29.95) READ MORE >>

The Feast of the Goat by Mario Vargas Llosa translated by Edith Grossman (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 404 pp., $25) READ MORE >>

Divided Jerusalem: The Struggle for the Holy Cityby Bernard Wasserstein(Yale University Press, 412 pp., $29.95)The Rock: A Tale of Seventh-Century Jerusalemby Kanan Makiya(Pantheon, 349 pp., $26) READ MORE >>

Playing It Safe: How the Supreme Court Sidesteps Hard Cases and Stunts the Development of Law by Lisa Kloppenberg (New York University Press, 304 pp., $38) READ MORE >>

Alexander Hamilton: Writings edited by Joanne B. Freeman (The Library of America, 1,108 pp., $40)Poor Alexander Hamilton! Once the darling of conservative Republicans, he has now fallen drastically out of favor. Some conservative activists are even seeking to take Hamilton's portrait off the ten-dollar bill and replace it with the image of Ronald Reagan. This effort tells us just how much the Republican Party has changed in the past hundred years, and how problematic Hamilton's reputation has now become. READ MORE >>

I. The Education of Laura Bridgman: The First Deaf and Blind Person to Learn Language by Ernest Freeberg (Harvard University Press, 264 pp., $27.95) The Imprisoned Guest: Samuel Howe and Laura Bridgman, the Original Deaf-Blind Girl by Elisabeth Gitter (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 341 pp., $26) Helen Keller: A Life by Dorothy Herrmann (Alfred A. Knopf, 395 pp., $30) READ MORE >>

Ornamentalism by David Cannadine Oxford University Press, 240 pp., $25) READ MORE >>

Marginalia: Readers Writing in Books by H.J. Jackson (Yale University Press, 324 pp., $27.95) READ MORE >>

Thomas Jefferson a film by Ken Burns (PBS) The Long Affair: Thomas Jefferson and the French Revolution, 1785-1800 by Conor Cruise O'Brien (University of Chicago, 367 pp., $29.95) Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: An American Controversy by Annette Gordon-Reed (University Press of Virginia, 279 pp., $29.95) American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson by Joseph J. Ellis (Knopf, 351 pp., $26) I. READ MORE >>

Active Faith: How Christians Are Changing the Soul of American Politics by Ralph Reed (The Free Press, 311 pp., $25) The Godless Constitution: The Case Against Religious Correctness by Isaac Kramnick and R. Laurence Moore (W.W. Norton, 191 pp., $22)   READ MORE >>