Cover of December 5, 2005 Issue

Print Magazine

December 5, 2005 Issue

As Lolita turns 50 Lila Azam Zanganeh assesses the cultural impact of Nabokov’s nymphet; John Banville reviews Party in the Blitz, the…

Cover art by: Cover by José Chicas/Avenging Angels

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Editorial

Emile Capouya

Emile Capouya, literary editor of The Nation from 1970-1976, was both a working man and an intellectual, who brought trade book publishing to European standards and lived to...

In Fact…

On November 11 longtime Nation contributor Robert Scheer learned he'd been fired by the Los Angeles Times, where he has worked as a reporter and columnist for ...

President Thelma

Is Commander-in-Chief softening up the country for President Hillary? Americans may not not be ready to put a woman in the White House, but they may have calmed down enough ...

In Kars and Frankfurt

The winner of the 2006 Nobel Prize for Literature wrote this 2005 editorial in The Nation, addressing the issue of the artistic imagination at risk in a repressive state. ...

More Leaks, Please!

Power-friendly reporters like Judith Miller are easily manipulated by selective leaks. But what we need now is more civil disobedience by whistle-blowers exposing renditions, acts ...

The GOP Retreat

Undoing the savage inequalities of the Bush era will require a titanic fight, but the new-found courage of GOP moderates hints that significant changes are in the wind.

Column

Unholy Wars

The conduct of the war in Iraq has embarrassed us, lowered us, endangered us and betrayed our best ideals. The debasement of our soldiers and the lawlessness of our leaders is shoc...

The Lies That Bind

Lack of candor is not surprising from Bush or Ahmad Chalabi, but why does the New York Times continue to struggle with the truth about Judith Miller? The Gray Lady might sol...

Letters

Feature

The Secret History of Rum

Long before oil dominated geopolitics, rum was the original global commodity, tying Europe, the Americas, Africa and the Caribbean in a complex web of trade and credit. And Bacardi...

Buyers’ Remorse

Home equity--for those lucky enough to own a house or condo--is a primary source of economic security. But unsold inventory, rising interest rates and record levels of mortgage def...

The War With No Name

For twenty-five years, Kurdish guerrillas have battled the forces of the Turkish state. For a while, things began to settle down, but the US occupation of Iraq changed all that.

The Champ Meets the Chump

When George W. Bush met Muhammad Ali at the White House last week, the Champ had one last rope-a-dope up his sleeve. You don't have to guess who won this match.

Books & the Arts

The Secret History of Rum

Long before oil dominated geopolitics, rum was the original global commodity, tying Europe, the Americas, Africa and the Caribbean in a complex web of trade and credit. And Bacardi...

Succès de Scandale

American readers have long felt guilty about loving Lolita. As Vladimir Nabokov's nymphet heroine turns 50, Lila Azam Zanganeh traces the impact of a novel that has become b...

The Tower of Babel

Jerome Charyn's Savage Shorthand: The Life and Death of Isaac Babel examines the life the revolutionary idealist murdered by Stalin in 1940 and explodes the literary myths t...

The Dying Animal

Gabriel García Márquez's new novella begins as an autobiography, but the passion-filled story of an old man, mad with love and clinging to life, weaves Marquez's othe...

Mystic River

Amartya Sen's latest collection of essays explores the rich flow of various peoples in and out of India and how they shaped the politics and spirituality of the nation today.

All About My Mother

The Caribbean island of Vieques is a fitting setting for Captain of the Sleepers, Cuban novelist Mayra Montero's engrossing story premised on violations of the dead.

Profane Illuminations

New biographies of Rousseau and Voltaire help us appreciate how very fragile the eighteenth century's great movement of ideas was, and how remarkable it is that the Enlightenment n...

President Thelma

Is Commander-in-Chief softening up the country for President Hillary? Americans may not not be ready to put a woman in the White House, but they may have calmed down enough ...

In Kars and Frankfurt

The winner of the 2006 Nobel Prize for Literature wrote this 2005 editorial in The Nation, addressing the issue of the artistic imagination at risk in a repressive state. ...

Agee’s Gospel

Two new volumes in the Library of America series present the life and work of James Agee, whose flashes of greatness as an essayist, screenwriter, novelist and Nation film ...

Soul on Ice

Is jazz really dead--or has it simply moved to a cooler location? Four new books take a scholarly look at a musical genre that is on the wane in America, but finding new life and n...

The Scrivener and the Whale

Andrew Delbanco's new biography of Herman Melville reveals that the great writer came to realize that what torments men is not the longing to believe that there is meaning in the u...

I Act, Therefore I Am

Admired from a distance and reviled up close, Laurence Olivier could establish a relation with his audience that was like an infection. His official biography chronicles a personal...

Monster’s Ball

Party in the Blitz, the final volume of Nobel laureate Elias Canetti's memoirs, is a chaotic, horribly fascinating memoir of a man who was a slave to love, an omnivorous int...

The Ring Cycle

When Joe Louis defeated Nazi sympathizer Max Schmeling in 1938, it was the boxing match that reverberated across the world. Three new books chronicle the match and all the racial a...

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