Books and Ideas

Donald Trump, “Stone Cold” Steve Austin, and Vince McMhaon at a press conference before Wrestlemania 23, 2007.

The Misunderstood History of American Wrestling The Misunderstood History of American Wrestling

A recent biography of WWE executive Vince McMahon presents him as an entertainment tycoon who changed culture and politics. The real story of his rise is as banal as it is brutal....

Nov 10, 2023 / Books & the Arts / Nadine Smith

A New York City apartment building.

A Modern-Day Fable for the Tenant Class A Modern-Day Fable for the Tenant Class

Hilary Leichter’s fiction examines contemporary crises like work and inequality through the lens of magical realism. Her latest novel, Terrace Story, is a parable about the family...

Nov 8, 2023 / Books & the Arts / Grace Byron

Surreal Tales From Erdoğan’s Turkey

Surreal Tales From Erdoğan’s Turkey Surreal Tales From Erdoğan’s Turkey

In Kenan Orhan's collection I Am My Country, he examines a pervasive sense of estrangement in contemporary Turkish life for both citizens and exiles.

Nov 7, 2023 / Books & the Arts / Kaya Genç

Coenties Slip in New York, 1850–1900.

How the New York Waterfront Shaped American Modernism How the New York Waterfront Shaped American Modernism

In The Slip, Prudence Peiffer looks at the role an overlooked neighborhood played in the lives and work of an eclectic set of postwar artists.

Nov 6, 2023 / Books & the Arts / Tausif Noor

David Velasco on April 18, 2018, in Milan, Italy.

Once Upon a Time in “Artforum” Once Upon a Time in “Artforum”

Artists and critics are polarized—and under great pressure from both sides of the conflict between Israel and Hamas.

Nov 2, 2023 / Barry Schwabsky

Representative Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) arrives at his office in the Rayburn House Office Building on October 19, 2023, in Washington, D.C.

Bullet Dodged Bullet Dodged

Oct 31, 2023 / Column / Calvin Trillin

Barricade fight in Berlin, March 1848.

The Year Europe Revolted The Year Europe Revolted

A new history by Christopher Clark on the 1848 revolutions.

Oct 31, 2023 / Books & the Arts / David A. Bell

The Origins of Race Reductionism

The Origins of Race Reductionism The Origins of Race Reductionism

Today’s conversation around inequality traces back to the compromises made in the late civil rights movement.

Oct 31, 2023 / Column / Adolph Reed Jr.

Letters Icon

Letters From the November 13/20, 2023, Issue Letters From the November 13/20, 2023, Issue

The economics of freedom… Oppenheimer: red or pink?…

Oct 31, 2023 / Our Readers

US national security adviser Jake Sullivan speaks at a White House press briefing after President Joe Biden gave remarks on the terrorist attacks in Israel, on October 10, 2023.

Jake Sullivan’s Rewrite Can’t Paper Over an Impoverished Foreign Policy Jake Sullivan’s Rewrite Can’t Paper Over an Impoverished Foreign Policy

The national security adviser’s hasty edits make clear the incoherence of Biden’s diplomacy.

Oct 30, 2023 / Jeet Heer

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