The New Republic Online: First Word

First Word
TNR Online is proud to introduce First Word, a series of political book reviews. While the print magazine's back of the book will remain the forum for longer reviews of scholarly books and fiction, First Word will focus on polemics and works of journalism that often go unreviewed by political magazines. We'll delve into the good and the bad, and we'll let you know whether a book is worth your time.

Why did we call it First Word? Because we'll be reviewing the books right when they come out, and in many cases, we hope our reviews will be the the beginning of a discussion about the arguments a book raises. We'll leave the more definitive takes to other reviewers, and the last word to you, our readers. The job of First Word is to get the conversation started.

Dream World by Joshua Brook
Post date 08.17.05
Imperial Nature presents a well-researched but deeply flawed critique of the World Bank.

Incomplete Guide by Reihan Salam
Post date 07.22.05
Fred Siegel is a fighting liberal of the best kind. But his new book about Giuliani falls short.

Widely Red by Martin Peretz
Post date 07.06.05
Red Star Over Hollywood is a useful corrective to the myth Hollywood built about itself and McCarthyism.

Everything in Moderation by Keelin McDonell
Post date 06.21.05
What two new books about Schwarzenegger miss.

Porn Identity by Alexander Barnes Dryer
Post date 06.17.05
Ben Shapiro's Porn Generation is riddled with bad writing and worse thinking.

Grief Management by Alexander Barnes Dryer
Post date 06.07.05
Kenneth Feinberg's What Is Life Worth? explains how a fund for 9/11 victims came to be about more than money.

Divide and Conquer by Joshua Brook
Post date 06.06.05
Sands of Empire argues that the main split in American foreign policy isn't between left and right.

Work Out by Telis Demos
Post date 05.31.05
Outsourcing America is a simplistic attack on offshoring.

Liberal Attack by Christopher Hayes
Post date 05.27.05
The New New Left lays out a failing strategy for right-wingers.

Blurry Vision by Reihan Salam
Post date 05.26.05
Three Billion New Capitalists takes on American shortsightedness.

Personal Statement by Keelin McDonell
Post date 05.25.05
Alexandra Pelosi tells us nothing new in Sneaking Into the Flying Circus.

Stage Left by Hope Glassberg
Post date 05.24.05
Spanking the Donkey critiques campaigning but mostly to showcase its author's politics.

History Lesson by Alexander Barnes Dryer
Post date 05.20.05
Blind Spot is a masterful prequel to the 9/11 Commission report.

Personal Statement by Bidisha Banerjee
Post date 05.18.05
In Voices of American Muslims, Linda Brandi Cateura presents interviews with a number of Muslims. She also asserts generalizations that her interviews don't support.

Unprepared by Joshua Brook
Post date 05.09.05
In Preventing Surprise Attacks, Richard Posner undercuts common assumptions about terrorists. Among his targets: the idea that we should always try to stop them.

Waste of Time by Elizabeth Shelburne
Post date 05.04.05
Spring Forward suggests we may have too much faith in Daylight Saving Time.

Insult Comic by Reihan Salam
Post date 05.02.05
Michael Eric Dyson's scathing attack on Bill Cosby contains an odious species of elitism.

Health Scare by Elizabeth Shelburne
Post date 04.28.05
Fran Hawthorne's Inside the FDA delves into the machinery of bureaucracy. But the biggest threats to health may be outside the FDA, not inside.

Golf War by Christopher Hayes
Post date 04.27.05
Martha Burk's Cult of Power makes a valuable, perhaps unintentional, point about political debate.

Drug Problem by Ben Adler
Post date 04.26.05
The Juice explains why baseball's drug predicament goes well beyond steroids.

Honest Mistake by Alexander Barnes Dryer
Post date 04.22.05
They Just Don't Get It: an awful book with an oddly honest take on terrorism.

Sex Change by Hope Glassberg
Post date 04.19.05
Smut advances a libertarian argument against porn.

Wise Fool by Christopher Hayes
Post date 04.14.05
The Long Emergency is a bizarre rant that raises a decent point.

Doctor No by Benjamin Healy
Post date 04.13.05
Uninsured in America tells of untreated diseases and their human toll.

Patriot Act by Reihan Salam
Post date 04.12.05
Why have Muslim Americans resisted militancy? Don't look to Paul Sperry's Infiltration for answers.

Sight Unseen by Martin Peretz
Post date 04.11.05
Simon Goldhill's The Temple of Jerusalem is an elegantly written history.

Entry Point by Alexander Barnes Dryer
Post date 04.08.05
Dying to Cross and the extremes of the immigration debate.

Social Cost by Ben Adler
Post date 04.06.05
The Flight of the Creative Class says there's an economic price to social conservatism.

Wheels of Justice by Keelin McDonell
Post date 03.31.05
Courtroom 302 mines the tedium of the justice system for compelling stories.

Sound Off by Richard Just
Post date 03.30.05
The Vast Left Wing Conspiracy sounds like something it's not.

Peace Offering by Reihan Salam
Post date 03.28.05
The New American Militarism is deft, diligent, and deeply wrong.

Speech Impediment by Alexander Barnes Dryer
Post date 03.25.05
Is Floyd Abrams endangering press freedom by defending it?

Spread Thin by Benjamin Healy
Post date 03.24.05
Will American pop culture spread democracy? Weapons of Mass Distraction says yes, but not how.

Country Profile by Hope Glassberg
Post date 03.23.05
China, Inc. sprawls across topics that would warrant entire books themselves.

Equivalence Theory by Telis Demos
Post date 03.21.05
Globaloney argues (wrongly) that both sides in the globalization debate are equally destructive.

Nuclear Option by Ben Adler
Post date 03.17.05
Ronald Reagan and His Quest to Abolish Nuclear Weapons makes its case well. Maybe too well.

Err France by Keelin McDonell
Post date 03.16.05
How not to bash a country.

Old News by Alexander Barnes Dryer
Post date 03.11.05
Where Tom Fenton's Bad News falls short.

Faith Based by Benjamin Healy
Post date 03.10.05
God on the Quad offers a bold prophesy but little reason to believe it.

Job Search by Telis Demos
Post date 03.08.05
Bringing the Jobs Home: a conservative take on outsourcing.

Old Line by Keelin McDonell
Post date 03.02.05
Do-Gooders attacks liberals with familiar aphorisms.

Court of Claims by Richard Just
Post date 03.01.05
The central point of Roy Moore's new book may be undercut by world events.

Private Industry by Telis Demos
Post date 02.28.05
No Place to Hide piles up scary anecdotes about privacy.

Comeback Kid by Alexander Barnes Dryer
Post date 02.25.05
Newt Gingrich's new book has much pretension, few details, and 2008 written all over it.

Surprise Party by Benjamin Healy
Post date 02.24.05
Reagan's Revolution contains (surely unintentional) lessons for Democrats.