Sparta’s Most Colorful Traitor Gets a Bland Biography
Daniel Ogden’s study of the Spartan-betraying traitor only comes alive in the appendix.
By CARL ROLLYSON
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CARL ROLLYSON
Cape May County, New Jersey
Carl Rollyson is a Book Reviewer for the Sun.
Mr. Rollyson is the author of The Life of William Faulkner and The Last Days of Sylvia Plath. He has published fourteen biographies and has written about biography for the Wall Street Journal, the Washington, Post, the San Francisco Chronicle, the New Criterion, and other publications.
Latest Articles
A Biography Tells the Truth About the Boy Who Fooled the Navy
Diane Diekman patiently establishes the facts of Graham’s life, verifying the story of a veteran who doggedly pursued what was owed to him.
By CARL ROLLYSON
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In a Life of Glamour and Wit, Anything Goes
Paul Matthew Kaplan’s biography of Cole Porter reinforces that the composer could get away with almost anything if it rhymed right.
By CARL ROLLYSON
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How George Washington and Thomas Jefferson Turned Land Into America’s Capital
New books argue the ‘empire of liberty’ built by the Founding Fathers depended chiefly on territorial expansion for a nascent nation.
By CARL ROLLYSON
||Culture
A Spiritual Quest Derailed by the Mortal Weight of the Material World
Andrew Durbin impressively renders the personal and artistic bond between resolute secularist Peter Hujar and religious painter Paul Thek.
By CARL ROLLYSON
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Debunking Carlos Castaneda’s Great American Con
Ironically, given his subject’s talent for deception, Ru Marshall’s forensic biography endured several rounds of punishing peer review.
By CARL ROLLYSON
||Culture
A Union Leader Who Bonded More With His Comrades Than With His Family
Alan Reuther’s biography of his father Roy Reuther shows how an activist’s profound commitment to social and political causes exacted a toll on those in his household.
By CARL ROLLYSON
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An Absorbing Biographical Novel of Marilyn Monroe Taking Charge of ‘Herself’
In his re-imagining of the final months of the screen icon’s life, M. J. Moore avoids conspiracy theories, instead focusing on her fight for control of her career.
By CARL ROLLYSON
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Just in Time for Its 500th Anniversary, a New Edition of Copernicus on Minting Money
It’s a deft presentation of a scientist who observed carefully not only the heavens but the political economy of his time.
By CARL ROLLYSON
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At 250, America Is Still Writing and Rewriting its Presidents
The range of approaches taken by the first presidential biographers persists today but the respectful distance, once maintained, has been broken.
By CARL ROLLYSON
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The Hemingway Shelf Rises
Ernest Hemingway’s epic persona explains the continual reimagining of his life in both fiction and fact.
By CARL ROLLYSON
||Culture
Mining Arthur Miller’s Tale for Fresh Material
Christopher Bigsby revisits the late, great playwright but the full extent of his subject remains out of reach.
By CARL ROLLYSON
||Culture