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3 weeks ago | 
thepenngazette.com | Dennis Drabelle
A new biography of Penn benefactor Henry Charles Lea paints the Philadelphia publisher, activist, real estate investor, and amateur historian as an exceptionally well-tutored man. By Dennis DrabelleFirst-rate scholarship by amateurs used to be a common feature of American intellectual life. Constance Rourke did not have a PhD in history or any other field; her 1931 book, American Humor: A Study of the National Character, has been republished as a New York Review of Books Classic.
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2 months ago | 
washingtonpost.com | Dennis Drabelle
Listen up, archaeologists and linguists. The Indian state of Tamil Nadu is offering $1 million to whoever can make sense of an unintelligible Bronze Age script used in the Indus Valley, in what is now Pakistan and India. It’s not the first time a burning desire to comprehend millennia-old writing has led to a heated contest.
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2 months ago | 
flipboard.com | Dennis Drabelle
4 hours agoIndia: Colors United Holi Fest Lights Up Navi Mumbai with Music, Culture and ColorsMumbai, India - March 14, 2025 The Colors United Holi Fest, the city’s biggest open-air Holi celebration, lived up to its grand reputation, bringing thousands together for a vibrant fusion of music, culture, and colors. The festival, held recently, created an unforgettable experience, with attendees reveling in the joyous spirit of Holi.
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Oct 24, 2024 | 
thepenngazette.com | Dennis Drabelle
A dispatch from Asheville in the wake of Hurricane Helene. By Dennis DrabelleTo paraphrase a lyric from the 1956 Broadway musical My Fair Lady: in Asheville, Weaverville, and Hendersonville, hurricanes hardly ever happen. Or so almost everyone living in and around those western North Carolina towns believed—not least my partner, Mike, and I. Weren’t we hundreds of miles inland from both the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean?
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Sep 24, 2024 | 
washingtonpost.com | Dennis Drabelle
Robert Harris. (Nick Gregan)Review by Dennis DrabelleSeptember 24, 2024 at 6:00 a.m. EDTAs Robert Harris demonstrated in his superb trilogy about the Roman statesman Cicero — “Imperium” (2006), “Conspirata” (2009) and “Dictator” (2015) — he is a master of the political novel.
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May 26, 2024 | 
pressherald.com | Dennis Drabelle
Most Americans who have heard of the Falkland Islands probably associate them with the sour little war waged there by Britain and Argentina in 1982. (The Brits won, hands down.) In his new book, “Left for Dead,” historian Eric Jay Dolin chronicles an earlier brush with belligerence there, during the War of 1812. It would hardly be an exaggeration to say that Dolin’s saga has as many twists and turns as a route through the mazy South Atlantic archipelago.
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May 18, 2024 | 
texarkanagazette.com | Eric Jay Dolin |Dennis Drabelle
Left for DeadShipwreck, Treachery, and Survival at the Edge of the WorldBy Eric Jay Dolin; Liveright (296 pp. $29.99)Most Americans who have heard of the Falkland Islands probably associate them with the sour little war waged there by Britain and Argentina in 1982. (The Brits won, hands down.) In his new book, "Left for Dead," historian Eric Jay Dolin chronicles an earlier brush with belligerence there, during the War of 1812.
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May 13, 2024 | 
washingtonpost.com | Dennis Drabelle
Most Americans who have heard of the Falkland Islands probably associate them with the sour little war waged there by Great Britain and Argentina in 1982. (The Brits won, hands down.) In his new book, “Left for Dead,” historian Eric Jay Dolin chronicles an earlier brush with belligerence there, during the War of 1812. It would hardly be an exaggeration to say that Dolin’s saga has as many twists and turns as a route through the mazy South Atlantic archipelago.
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Apr 24, 2024 | 
thepenngazette.com | Dennis Drabelle
The countryside looms large in America’s self-image. Should it? ByDennis DrabelleSteven Conn Gr’94’s new book, The Lies of theLand, is amyth-buster that begins and ends with a swing at Thomas Jefferson’sidealization of yeoman tillers of the soil. “American pioneers andhomesteaders,” Conn argues in his introduction, “far from being anchored to theland like they were supposed to be, were restless and expansive and mobile,perhaps even more so in the nineteenth century than in the twentieth.
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Aug 24, 2023 | 
thepenngazette.com | Nate Chinen |Trey Popp |Dennis Drabelle
Download a PDF of this issueSeptember | October 2023Vol. 122, No. 1FeaturesFrom swinging standards to avant garde nonconformism, Penn music professor, jazz drummer, and shapeshifting composer Tyshawn Sorey has won acclaim for “awesomely confounding” music whose “vulnerable virtuosity” can “open different portals in your depth of feeling and imagination.”By Nate ChinenFrom picture books to The Poet X, Penn Libraries are expanding and diversifying their holdings of books for young readers.
