Book Reviews

Lure of the Arcane: The Literature of Cult and Conspiracy

Theodore Ziolkowski. Johns Hopkins University Press, 2013. 230 pages. $39.95.

No Time Like the Present: A Novel

Nadine Gordimer. Picador, 2013. 434 pages. $27.00.

Words Like Loaded Pistols: Rhetoric from Aristotle to Obama

Sam Leith. Basic Books, 2012. 312 pages. $26.99.

Books: A Living History

Martyn Lyons. J. Paul Getty Museum, 2011. 224 pages. $34.95.

The New Religious Intolerance: Overcoming the Politics of Fear in an Anxious Age

Martha C. Nussbaum. Harvard University Press, 2012. 245 pages. $26.95.

Nightmare Alley: Film Noir and the American Dream

Mark Osteen. Johns Hopkins University Press, 2013. 324 pages. $34.95.

An Ecology of Happiness

Eric Lambin. Translated by Teresa Lavender Fagan. University of Chicago Press, 2012. 184 pages. $26.00.

Armies of Heaven: The First Crusade and the Quest for the Apocalypse

Jay Rubenstein. Basic Books, 2011. 424 pages. $29.00.

The Rise of Abraham Cahan

Seth Lipsky. Nextbook/Schocken, 2013. 224 pages. $26.00.

Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty

Daniel Acemoglu and James A. Robinson. Crown Publishers, 2012. 544 pages. $30.00.

Underwater Eden: Saving the Last Coral Wilderness on Earth

Gregory S. Stone and David Obura. University of Chicago Press 2013. 184 pages. $40.00.

Divided Nations: Why Global Governance is Failing, and What We Can Do about It

Ian Goldin. Oxford University Press, 2013. 207 pages. $21.95.