Obama From the Rearview Mirror Obama From the Rearview Mirror
The former president didn’t lose the argument with the right; he chose not to wage it.
Apr 20, 2017 / Books & the Arts / Robert L. Borosage
Inside the Birth of a Trump-Inspired Intellectual Magazine Inside the Birth of a Trump-Inspired Intellectual Magazine
Reading through American Affairs, one gets the sense that avoiding policy questions is as much a strategy as a politics.
Apr 19, 2017 / Books & the Arts / Gideon Lewis-Kraus
What America’s 19th-Century Reformers and Radicals Missed What America’s 19th-Century Reformers and Radicals Missed
A new book on the antebellum period captures the dangers of confusing self-improvement with institutional change.
Apr 18, 2017 / Books & the Arts / Brenda Wineapple
Is Our Common Humanity a Discovery or an Invention? Is Our Common Humanity a Discovery or an Invention?
A new book offers a panoramic view of how we came to recognize each other as equals.
Apr 6, 2017 / Books & the Arts / Michael Walzer
What Did Equality Mean for the Founders? What Did Equality Mean for the Founders?
Three new books on the early republic explore the critical, if contested, role equality has played in shaping American political culture.
Apr 5, 2017 / Books & the Arts / Sophia Rosenfeld
Le Pen’s Long Shadow Le Pen’s Long Shadow
If you want to understand the wave of right-wing populism erupting in Europe and the United States, France is a good place to start.
Apr 4, 2017 / Books & the Arts / David A. Bell
The Red Emigrant The Red Emigrant
For Isaac Deutscher, exile helped him discover his real community—the internationalist left.
Mar 30, 2017 / Books & the Arts / Bruce Robbins
Ali Smith’s Novel of Disintegration Ali Smith’s Novel of Disintegration
One of Autumn’s recurring themes is our willed blindness to what threatens our sense of order—from climate change to financial and political insecurity.
Mar 29, 2017 / Books & the Arts / Namara Smith
Terence Davies’s Counter-Séance Terence Davies’s Counter-Séance
A Quiet Passion doesn’t pretend to recall the skeptical spirit of Emily Dickinson to the land of the living but rather projects you into her departed world.
Mar 28, 2017 / Books & the Arts / Stuart Klawans
The Ambiguous Legacy of Obama’s Foreign Policy The Ambiguous Legacy of Obama’s Foreign Policy
He may have talked about precision and constraint when it came to the national-security state, but he ultimately failed to leave us with a new strategic vision.
Mar 23, 2017 / Books & the Arts / Karen J. Greenberg