Books and Ideas

Security guards stand outside the BBC’s London headquarters, which pro-Palestine activists splashed with red paint in protest of the BBC's biased coverage of Israel’s attacks on Gaza.

“Let’s Wait Till Israel Says Something”: Why the Media Has Failed the Test of the War in Gaza “Let’s Wait Till Israel Says Something”: Why the Media Has Failed the Test of the War in Gaza

A dispatch from the front lines of the information war.

Dec 5, 2023 / Razia Iqbal

Joaquin Phoenix in “Napoleon.”

History According to Ridley Scott History According to Ridley Scott

Ultimately what we learn in Napoleon says far more about the director than it does about Napoleon.

Dec 4, 2023 / Books & the Arts / Mike Duncan

Steve McQueen and Jonathan Glazer Confront the Holocaust 

Steve McQueen and Jonathan Glazer Confront the Holocaust  Steve McQueen and Jonathan Glazer Confront the Holocaust 

In Zones of Interest and Occupied City, the two filmmakers attempt to depict the ordinary fascism and everyday violence of World War II.

Dec 4, 2023 / Books & the Arts / J. Hoberman

An Urgent Witness, Not a Passive Bystander, to Climate Catastrophe

An Urgent Witness, Not a Passive Bystander, to Climate Catastrophe An Urgent Witness, Not a Passive Bystander, to Climate Catastrophe

Conversations with Jane Hirshfield, poet of the present moment.

Dec 4, 2023 / Feature / Wen Stephenson

Nation Poetry

The Caribou The Caribou

Dec 4, 2023 / Poems / Chessy Normile

Representative Mike Johnson leaves a House Republican conference meeting in the Longworth House Office Building on Capitol Hill on October 24, 2023, in Washington, D.C.

Mike Johnson’s “18th-Century Values” Mike Johnson’s “18th-Century Values”

The new speaker of the House says he's a history buff. But has he learned from it, or is he condemned to repeat it?

Nov 30, 2023 / Column / Katha Pollitt

Seeing Japanese American Heritage Through Ansel Adams’s Lens

Seeing Japanese American Heritage Through Ansel Adams’s Lens Seeing Japanese American Heritage Through Ansel Adams’s Lens

A photographer excavates personal history through reconstruction of Adams's World War II photographs of Japanese Americans interned at the Manzanar Relocation Center.

Nov 29, 2023 / Photo Essay / Joseph Maida

Stephen F. Cohen Russian Fate

“Russian Fate: A Memoir I’ll Never Write” “Russian Fate: A Memoir I’ll Never Write”

From the archives and files of Stephen F. Cohen.

Nov 29, 2023 / Katrina vanden Heuvel

“Melancholy,” Edvard Munch, 1895.

Søren Kierkegaard Dared to Ask Søren Kierkegaard Dared to Ask

In The Sickness Unto Death, the Danish philosopher posed a difficult question: Is despair an essential feature of human life?

Nov 29, 2023 / Books & the Arts / Clare Carlisle

This family owned their own farm near Haifa. They fled when the British mandate ended and it became certain Israel would control the town. Today they are refugees in a camp near Gaza. The only possession they still have is a padded blanket.

The Long, Bloody History of the Israel-Gaza “Border” The Long, Bloody History of the Israel-Gaza “Border”

The current conflict has its roots in the 75-year struggle over the constantly shifting physical boundaries between Israel and the Palestinians whose land it has occupied.

Nov 29, 2023 / Anne Irfan

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