HISTORICAL THESAURUS OF THE OXFORD ENGLISH DICTIONARY.
Edited by Chistian Key, Jane Roberts, Michael Samuels, and Irene Wotherspoon.
Oxford Univ. Pres. 3,892 pp. $395
FIRST WE READ, THEN WE WRITE:
Emerson on the Creative Process.
By Robert D. Richardson.
Univ. of Iowa Press. 101 pp. $19.95
ABOUT A MOUNTAIN.
By John D’Agata.
W. W. Norton. 236 pp. $23.95
Critics have tried to explain away the West’s centuries-long economic domination of the globe; they would do better to study its lessons.
FROM ETERNITY TO HERE:
The Quest for the Ultimate Theory of Time.
By Sean Carroll.
Dutton. 438 pp. $26.95
When rights are at issue, Americans instinctively turn to the courts. It is an undemocratic habit that they have exported, along with the underlying institutions, with dismaying success.
As the years go by and his first editions gain in value, a once starry-eyed book collector is faced with questions beyond price.
THE SOURCE: “Accept Defeat: The Neuroscience of Screwing Up” by Jonah Lehrer, in Wired, Jan. 2010.
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Robert Dallek thinks impeachment is too unwieldy, and that the voters should decide whether a president continues in office.