Barbara F. Walter offers a handy guide for predicting where political instability is most likely to occur—and it is usually when that country is moving away from democracy.

Lynn Monahan has done a superb job of capturing the feel of Andean Latin America—the shabby metropolis of middle-class Lima, the precariousness of a bus ride up the ragged side of a mountain, the poverty and rich culture of the rural Quechua people.

As the reader has no doubt anticipated, Greenblatt has emulated the Shakespearean endeavor: The book is a rumination on the current president, without once mentioning the man by name.

Daniel Mendelsohn's book is much more than a memoir.