City Journal, Volume 16, Number 1, Winter 2006.

Notable essays:

• The Plot to Shush Rush and O’Reilly by Brian C. Anderson.
  [Politically motivated attempts to squelch free speech via campaign-finance "reform".]


• Marriage and Caste by Kay S. Hymowitz.
  [Marriage is the sine qua non for the overall well-being of children.]

Notable Essay:

The Return of Patriarchy by Phillip Longman. Foreign Policy, March/April 2006.

"Patriarchal societies come in many varieties and evolve through different stages. What they have in common are customs and attitudes that collectively serve to maximize fertility and parental investment in the next generation."

Peter Brimblecombe.
Air Composition & Chemistry, Second Edition.
Cambridge University Press, 1996.
(Series: Cambridge Environmental Chemistry Series, Volume 6.)
Book information: Publisher, Amazon.com.

An introduction to the chemistry of planetary atmospheres. The discussions of lapse rate and chemical kinetics had me reaching for a physical chemistry book: the author's discussion is necessarially compressed and incomplete; throughout the book the derivation of mathematical expressions for physical laws are compressed, abbreviated, and even completely eliminated. The book also lacks exercises. Despite these criticisms, this book is a very good introduction to the subject.

Standard textbooks in this area include:

• Richard P. Wayne.
  Chemistry of Atmospheres: An Introduction to the Chemistry of the Atmospheres of Earth, the Planets, and Their Satellites, Third Edition.
  Oxford University Press, 2002.


• John H. Seinfeld and Spyros N. Pandis.
  Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics: From Air Pollution to Climate Change.
  Wiley-Interscience, 1997.


• Peter Warneck.
  Chemistry of the Natural Atmosphere, Second Edition.
  Academic Press, 1999.


• Barbara J. Finlayson-Pitts and James N. Pitts, Jr.
  Chemistry of the Upper and Lower Atmosphere: Theory, Experiments, and Applications.
  Academic Press, 1999.

The National Interest, Number 82, Winter 2005/2006.

Notable Essays:

• Thinking Seriously: About Energy and Oil's Future by James Schlesinger (pages 19-24).
  A warning about the coming "plateau" in the supply of petroleum (end in growth of supply). Of immediate concern is the need for increased refinery capacity; of longer term concern is the economic and social disruption that will occur as liquid fuel supplies plateau.


• War, Trade and Utopia by Barry C. Lynn (pages 31-38).
  Discusses the strategic and economic dangers of the unprecendented rise over the past 15 years of industrial interdepencence between China and the USA.


• Prone to Violence: The Paradox of the Democratic Peace by Edward D. Mansfield and Jack Snyder (pages 39-45).
  Newly democratizing states have proven to be prone to international and civil war. The authors' book is Electing to Fight : Why Emerging Democracies Go to War.


• Her Majesty's Secret Service by Steven Simon and Jonathan Stevenson (pages 48-54).
  Despite its title, this essay considers the state of Islamic radicalism and measures to identify and mitigate it in the UK, continental Europe (briefly), and the USA (at length).


• Terror and the Fifth Republic by Alexis Debat (pages 55-61).
  A survey of France's considerable counter-terrorism efforts (France lacks the Constitutional restrictions of the USA and thus has very wide powers to monitor and prosecute those who would disrupt the peace).


• Mexico's Wasted Chance by Fredo Arias-King (pages 87-93).
  A good essay on Mexican politics. The reform party Partido Accion Nacional (PAN), or more precisely, its leaders (starting at the top with President Vicente Fox), have been compromised and now follow the path of corruption like their predecessors, the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI). A helpful essay for understanding the obstacles to economic, political, and legal progress in Latin American countries.


• Why Anglos Lead by Lawrence M. Mead (pages 124-131).
  It's due to the political, legal, and economic culture of England and its colonial extensions, the USA, Australia, Canada and New Zealand. Mead explicitly says that he is not writing about James Bennett's "Anglosphere" idea (Link).

The Claremont Review of Books, Volume VI, Number 1, Winter 2005/06.

Notable Essays:

• Philosophy in Democratic Times by Algis Valiunas.
  On George Santayana.


• The Logic of the "Peace Process" by Angelo M. Codevilla.
  The United States has prevented the majority Shia and Kurds from forcefully dealing with the Bathist Sunni minority, thus encouraging the Sunni instigated Iraqi civil war. Without a decisive victory over the Sunnis there can be no peace in Iraq. Unfortunately, USA policy makers have no stomach for the kind of victory that would ensure pease.
  Note: Codevilla is the author of No Victory, No Peace.

A. R. (Andrew Robert) Burn.
The Persian Wars: The Greeks and the Defence of the West, c. 546 - 478 B.C.
London: The Folio Society, 2002.

Previously published as:
Persia and the Greeks: The Defence of the West, c. 546 - 478 B.C., Second Edition. London: Gerald Duckworth and Co., Ltd., 1984.
American Edition: Stanford University Press, 1984 (Amazon).

This book covers mostly the same period and events in Greek history as Herodotus (less Egypt and Scythia); thus I found it an excellent sequel to reading Herodotus. In many ways the book is a commentary on and updating of Herodotus, using all the resources of history and archeology accumulated since the time of Herodotus.

The Claremont Review of Books, Volume V, Number 3, Summer 2005.

Notable Essays:

• Between Idealism and Realism by Adam Wolfson.
  A good essay on President Bush's foreign policy.


• The Long Detour by William A. Rusher.
  A survey of the rise of the Conservative movement in 20th century American politics. It describes how Richard Nixon, an opportunist who opposed the Conservatives, delayed the Conservative electoral triumph from 1968 until 1980.

Theodore Dalrymple (psuedonym of Anthony Daniels).
Life At the Bottom: The Worldview That Makes the Underclass.
Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, Publisher, 2001.

The denial of individual responsibility and free will yields a rotten fruit when those ideas, promulgated by intellectuals (cultural leaders such as teachers) and practiced by the functionaries of the welfare state, are adopted by the weakest members of society (namely the poor and unintelligent, or merely ignorant). The excellent essays comprising this book arose from Dalrymple's experience as a physician/psychiatrist in Birmingham, England and were originally published in City Journal.

Links to Book Reviews and Other Essays by Dalrymple:

• Manhattan Institute (Links to Book Reviews on the left side of this page.)


• Brothers Judd (Links to Book Reviews and other Dalrymple essays at the bottom of this page.)


• The Social Affairs Unit (A London public policy research group.)


• Our Culture, What's Left of It: The Mandarins and the Masses, Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, Publisher, 2005. (A more recent collection of his City Journal essays.)

Policy Review, Number 134, December 2005/January 2006.

Notable Essays:

• China’s Quest for Asia by Dana Dillon and John J. Tkacik Jr.
  Describes China's increasingly aggressive foreign policy in which China uses economic bargaining to coerce Southeast Asian nations to align with China and (perhaps) against the United States. Part of this realignment is clearly due to the United States' neglect of diplomatic relations with Southeast Asian nations.


• Making Democracy Stick by Gerard Alexander.
  One of many essays published recently in foreign policy journals discussing the problems of exporting democratic government to regions with historically authoritarian cultural traditions. (See, for example, The National Interest: here, here; and Foreign Affairs: here, here.)

Herodotus, The Histories (5th century BCE)

Herodotus (c. 480 - 425 B.C.).
The Histories.
George Rawlinson, translator.
Chicago: Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc., 1952.
(Series: Great Books of the Western World, Volume 6.)

A disadvantage of George Rawlinson's translation is that it is old (completed in 1860); the contemporary reader may find its British English somewhat archaic.

Other Translations:

• David Grene, University of Chicago Press, 1988 (Amazon).
  Note: Grene has provided commentary to an edition of Thomas Hobbes' translation of Thucydides, The Pelopenesian War, University Of Chicago Press, 1989 (Amazon).
• Walter Blanko, Norton Critical Edition, 1992 (Amazon).
  This is very readable; however, that Norton edition omits some of Herodotus' text. The Norton edition includes about 150 pages of "Backgrounds" (selected excerpts from ancient Greeks and Romans) and "Commentaries;" I found some of the Commentary essays useful.

If I had more time I would read these Commentaries:

• Herodotean Inquiries by Seth Benardete. St. Augustine's Press, 1999. (Amazon)
• The World of Herodotus by Aubrey de Selincourt. Phoenix Press, 2001. (Amazon)

Links:

• The History of Hellas
• Internet Ancient History Sourcebook: Greece

Update, 13 Aug 2012:

Editions:
The Landmark Herodotus: The Histories. Robert B. Strassler, editor. Andrea L. Purvis, translator. New York: Pantheon, 2007.
[Publisher; Google Books; Amazon.com.]