1985–1995: American Politics and Culture is Being Radically Reformed 1985–1995: American Politics and Culture is Being Radically Reformed
Nation writers on late 1980s New York, Jesse Jackson's presidential campaign, gay rights, Rupert Murdoch's ambitions and the case for federal funding of the arts.
Mar 23, 2015 / Books & the Arts / The Nation
Parting Parting
December 7, 1963 White morning flows into the mirror. Her eye, still old with sleep, meets itself like a sister. How they slept last night, the dream that caged them back to back, was nothing new. Last words, tears, most often come wrapped as the everyday familiar failure. Now, pulling the comb slowly through her loosened hair, she tries to find the parting; it must come out after all: hidden in all that tangle there is a way. This article is part of The Nation’s 150th Anniversary Special Issue. Download a free PDF of the issue, with articles by James Baldwin, Barbara Ehrenreich, Toni Morrison, Howard Zinn and many more, here. Over a half-century, Adrienne Rich (1929–2012) wrote twenty-two poems for The Nation and several reviews and essays, including a 2002 piece exploring the meaning of “antiwar.”
Mar 23, 2015 / Books & the Arts / Adrienne Rich
1915–1965 1915–1965
From World War I to Vietnam, from the red scare to McCarthyism, The Nation stood firm for civil liberties and civil rights, even when that meant being banned—or standing alone.
Mar 23, 2015 / Books & the Arts / D.D. Guttenplan
American Imperialism: This Is When It All Began American Imperialism: This Is When It All Began
Accustomed to trampling democracy at home, jingoists cannot be expected to see its virtues abroad.
Mar 23, 2015 / Books & the Arts / Horace White and Elinor Langer
There Cannot Be Peace and Security Until the Cause of Palestinian Suffering Is Addressed There Cannot Be Peace and Security Until the Cause of Palestinian Suffering Is Addressed
There is a racist premise underpinning the “peace process” that Arab lives aren’t worth as much as Jewish lives.
Mar 23, 2015 / Books & the Arts / Edward W. Said
The Starry Night The Starry Night
September 2, 1961 “That does not keep me from having a terrible need of—shall I say the word—religion. Then I go out at night to paint the stars.” —Vincent Van Gogh, in a letter to his brother The town does not exist except where one black haired tree slips up like a drowned woman into the hot sky. The town is silent. The night boils with eleven stars. Oh starry starry night! This is how I want to die. It moves. They are all alive. Even the moon bulges in its orange irons to push children, like a god, from its eye. The old unseen serpent swallows up the stars. Oh starry starry night! This is how I want to die: into the rushing beast of the night, sucked up by that great dragon, to split from my life with no flag, no belly, no cry. This article is part of The Nation’s 150th Anniversary Special Issue. Download a free PDF of the issue, with articles by James Baldwin, Barbara Ehrenreich, Toni Morrison, Howard Zinn and many more, here. Anne Sexton (1928–1974) won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1967 for Live or Die.
Mar 23, 2015 / Books & the Arts / Anne Sexton
1965–2015 1965–2015
A forum for debate between radicals and liberals in an age of austerity, surveillance and endless war, The Nation has long had one foot inside the establishment and one outside it....
Mar 23, 2015 / Books & the Arts / D.D. Guttenplan
Voting Does Not Make a Difference Voting Does Not Make a Difference
Democracy is dead in the United States. Yet there is still nothing to replace real democracy.
Mar 23, 2015 / Books & the Arts / W.E.B. Du Bois
What Does ‘The Communist Manifesto’ Have to Offer 150 Years After Its Publication? What Does ‘The Communist Manifesto’ Have to Offer 150 Years After Its Publication?
At the dawn of the twentieth century, there were workers who were ready to die with The Communist Manifesto. At the dawn of the twenty-first, there may be even more who are ready t...
Mar 23, 2015 / Books & the Arts / Marshall Berman
The Plain Sense of Things The Plain Sense of Things
December 6, 1952 After the leaves have fallen, we return To a plain sense of things. It is as if We had come to an end of the imagination, Inanimate in an inert savoir. It is difficult even to choose the adjective For this blank cold, this sadness without cause. The great structure has become a minor house. No turban walks across the lessened floors. The greenhouse never so badly needed paint. The chimney is fifty years old and slants to one side. A fantastic effort has failed, a repetition In a repetitiousness of men and flies. Yet the absence of the imagination had Itself to be imagined. The great pond, The plain sense of it, without reflections, leaves, Mud, water like dirty glass, expressing silence Of a sort, silence of a rat come out to see, The great pond and its waste of the lilies, all this Had to be imagined as an inevitable knowledge, Required, as a necessity requires. This article is part of The Nation’s 150th Anniversary Special Issue. Download a free PDF of the issue, with articles by James Baldwin, Barbara Ehrenreich, Toni Morrison, Howard Zinn and many more, here. Wallace Stevens (1879–1955) published ten poems in The Nation between 1936 and 1952.
Mar 23, 2015 / Books & the Arts / Wallace Stevens