Books and Ideas

Israel’s Culture of Martyrdom Israel’s Culture of Martyrdom

Nations like to imagine themselves as unique, but one belief they have in common is that it is noble to die in their name. Death and redemption are the themes of almost every for...

Dec 22, 2004 / Books & the Arts / Baruch Kimmerling

Stanton’s Wisdom Stanton’s Wisdom

One afternoon in January 1892, in a packed convention hall in Washington, DC, the 76-year-old Elizabeth Cady Stanton rose from her seat to address the annual meeting of the Natio...

Dec 22, 2004 / Books & the Arts / Vivian Gornick

Activist and author Dorothy Canfield Fisher at her desk.

A Christmas Amnesty A Christmas Amnesty

This article, from the December 14, 1946, issue of The Nation, is a special selection from The Nation’s Digital Archive.

Dec 21, 2004 / Feature / Dorothy Canfield Fisher

Versed in Adventure Versed in Adventure

Few modern poets served so long an apprenticeship as Basil Bunting, none had so adventurous a life and few poets' lives have produced such lasting rewards.

Dec 16, 2004 / Books & the Arts / Stephen Burt

An Arab Surrealist An Arab Surrealist

The Springs of Adonis (now also known as the River Ibrahim) run through the Byblos region of Lebanon down through steep gorges to the Mediterranean.

Dec 16, 2004 / Books & the Arts / Robert Irwin

The Illusion of Inclusion The Illusion of Inclusion

In 1958 John Ashbery sailed for Paris to gather materials for a thesis he intended to write about Raymond Roussel, who at the time was an all-but-forgotten French poet, playwrigh...

Dec 9, 2004 / Books & the Arts / John Palattella

The Other Africans The Other Africans

When V.S.

Dec 9, 2004 / Books & the Arts / Leela Jacinto

Is That All There Is? Is That All There Is?

It's hard to resist the misery of V.S. Naipaul's late fiction, hard not to surrender to its bleak and wary authority.

Dec 9, 2004 / Books & the Arts / Michael Wood

Subcontinental Homesick Blues Subcontinental Homesick Blues

Nearly twenty years ago, in a village in the western Indian state of Rajasthan, a young woman called Roop Kanwar was burned to death at her husband's funeral pyre.

Dec 9, 2004 / Books & the Arts / Siddhartha Deb

Operation Self-Destruction Operation Self-Destruction

This article, from the August 26, 1968, issue of The Nation, is a special selection from The Nation Digital Archive. If you want to read everything The Nation has ever published on...

Dec 8, 2004 / Feature / Karl M. Purnell

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