FKA Twigs, High Priestess of Pop Music’s Avant-Garde FKA Twigs, High Priestess of Pop Music’s Avant-Garde
Mixing sacred imagery and snatches of memoir, the British artist’s new album is Magdalene a beautiful and eerie statement.
Dec 2, 2019 / Books & the Arts / Julyssa Lopez
Eric Foner’s Story of American Freedom Eric Foner’s Story of American Freedom
Charting the ironies of freedom won and lost during and after the Civil War, the American historian has also helped us better understand the ambiguous consequences of what were alm...
Dec 2, 2019 / Books & the Arts / Michael Kazin
From ‘outside voices, please’ From ‘outside voices, please’
I grew drunk on the dragonflies’ ultra Three times I asked our misogynistic uncle, the family patriarch, for money for books for the girls to which he then scoffed drunkenly throwi…
Nov 19, 2019 / Books & the Arts / Valerie Hsiung
Ted Chiang’s Sci-Fi Goes Beyond the Promise of Technology Ted Chiang’s Sci-Fi Goes Beyond the Promise of Technology
In his short story collection Exhalation, he builds social worlds where every character and object is deeply intertwined in history and in future possibility.
Nov 19, 2019 / Books & the Arts / Stephen Kearse
Mati Diop’s ‘Atlantics’ Is a Startling Study of Power Mati Diop’s ‘Atlantics’ Is a Startling Study of Power
As the contemporary film landscape heralds the coming of a class war, Diop’s beautiful movie reckons with capital and labor in groundbreaking fashion.
Nov 18, 2019 / Books & the Arts / Namwali Serpell
How Should We Remember the Puritans? How Should We Remember the Puritans?
In his new book, Daniel Rodgers not only offers a close reading of Puritan history but also seeks to rescue their early critique of market economy.
Nov 18, 2019 / Books & the Arts / Andrew Delbanco
David Maraniss’s Tale of Hope and Misfortune in Postwar America David Maraniss’s Tale of Hope and Misfortune in Postwar America
In A Good American Family, the journalist and editor examines his father and mother’s youthful idealism and the bitter years of McCarthyism that followed.
Nov 12, 2019 / Books & the Arts / Andrew J. Bacevich
Who Gets to Be Color-Blind? Who Gets to Be Color-Blind?
Thomas Chatterton Williams argues in his new book that race is something individuals can unlearn. But no matter how socially constructed racial identity may be, our lived experienc...
Nov 11, 2019 / Books & the Arts / Ismail Muhammad
Did the New Deal Need FDR? Did the New Deal Need FDR?
His political evolution points to a different locus of power than the one liberals tend to invoke when discussing the era’s history.
Nov 11, 2019 / Books & the Arts / Kim Phillips-Fein
Ta-Nehisi Coates’s Narratives of Freedom Ta-Nehisi Coates’s Narratives of Freedom
History has always been a weapon in the hands of Ta-Nehisi Coates. Now, in his debut novel, the social critic and essayist sets out to recover those struggles for emancipation that...
Oct 29, 2019 / Books & the Arts / Elias Rodriques