By Abigail Thernstrom and Stephan Themstrom.Simon & Schuster. 334 pp. $26
INTERTWINED LIVES: Margaret Mead, Ruth Benedict, and Their Circle. By Lois W. Banner. Knopf. 540 pp. $30
BROADWAY BOOGIE WOOGIE: Damon Runyon and the Making of New York City Culture. By Daniel R. Schwarz. Palgrave Macmillan. 346 pp. $35
THE ART OF BURNING BRIDGES: A Life of John O’Hara. By Geoffrey Wolff. Knopf. 373 pp. $30
GOOD MORNING, MR. ZIP ZIP ZIP: Movies, Memory, and World War II. By Richard Schickel. Ivan R. Dee. 329 pp. $27.50
THE IRISH WAY: A Walk through Ireland’s Past and Present. By Robert Emmett Ginna. Random House. 298 pp. $24.95
THE LAST REVOLUTIONARIES: German Communists and Their Century. By Catherine Epstein. Harvard Univ. Press. 322 pp. $29.95
GRAND OLD PARTY: A History of the Republicans. By Lewis L. Gould. Random House. 602 pp. $35
EVIL IN MODERN THOUGHT: An Alternative History of Philosophy. By Susan Neiman. Princeton Univ. Press. 358 pp. $29.95