The WQ's Most Read Stories of 2010

POSTED: Dec 22, 2010 02:53 PM

2010 has been a big year for the WQ. In addition to launching a redesigned website (with full archive access for subcribers!), we’ve started this blog, created a Facebook page, launched a Twitter feed, and produced a few podcasts. As we (and, we hope, you) wait with anticipation for our Winter 2011 issue to arrive from the printer, here’s a list of the WQ pieces that were the most popular on the Web this year. Happy New Year!
 
  1. America: Land of Loners?” by Daniel Akst
Americans, plugged in and on the move, are confiding in their pets, their computers, and their spouses. What they need is to rediscover the value of friendship.
 
  1. The Enterprise of Nations” by David S. Landes
Critics have tried to explain away the West’s centuries-long economic domination of the globe; they would do better to study its lessons.
 
  1. Gandhi’s Invisible Hands” by Ian Desai
Behind the rise of Mahatma Gandhi was a little-recognized team of followers he carefully recruited including his secretary, Mahadev Desai.
 
  1. Celebrity Jane” by Brooke Allen
A review of two books that consider various aspects of the Jane Austen industry.
 
  1. The Arab Tomorrow” by David B. Ottaway
The Arab world today is ruled by contradiction. Turmoil and stagnation prevail, as colossal wealth and hypermodern cities collide with mass
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The WQ’s Top 10 Books

POSTED: Dec 09, 2010 05:46 PM

It’s the season of best-of lists. In our case, we enjoyed the chance to look back on a year of excellent reading. Below are 10 nonfiction books reviewed in our pages that particularly captured our—and their reviewers’—attention. You won’t find a blockbuster in the lot, but some of the finest scholarship, best narrative history, and most provocative thinking published over the past year.

1688: The First Modern Revolution. By Steve Pincus. Yale Univ. Press. 647 pp. $40
A bold new interpretation of how Britain’s Glorious Revolution ushered in the modern political era.

FLIGHT FROM MONTICELLO: Thomas Jefferson at War. By Michael Kranish. Oxford Univ. Press. 388 pp. $27.95 
A colorful account of Thomas

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