Review: Four New History Books (Washington Post)

As a child, I couldn’t understand why my parents always took biographies of French presidents or memoirs by mountaineers on holiday when a sensible traveler would surely prefer “Evil Under the Sun” by Agatha Christie. Now I get it. Forget beach reads; vacations are the best time to bite off a serious hunk of history. Here are four new books that offer something to think about as you wait for your plane, your train or the end of the summer rain.

Books reviewed:

• The Last Honest Man: The CIA, the FBI, the Mafia, and the Kennedys — and One Senator’s Fight to Save Democracy by James Risen

• Soldiers Don’t Go Mad: A Story of Brotherhood, Poetry, and Mental Illness During the First World War by Charles Glass

• American Whitelash: A Changing Nation and the Cost of Progress by Wesley Lowery

• The Lost Sons of Omaha: Two Young Men in an American Tragedy by Joe Sexton

For the reviews in full, visit The Washington Post.