Books and Ideas

Intolerable Cruelty Intolerable Cruelty

On May 22, 1787, nine Quakers and three Anglicans gathered in a London print shop with the express purpose of doing something about the international slave trade.

Jan 27, 2005 / Books & the Arts / Daniel Lazare

Men in Dark Times Men in Dark Times

"I am very happy to see so many flowers here and that is why I want to remind you that flowers, by themselves, have no power whatsoever, other than the power of men and women who...

Jan 20, 2005 / Books & the Arts / Russell Jacoby

Beyond Good and Evil Beyond Good and Evil

Adorno said, as we all know, that writing poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric. This is not to say, as many imagine, that writing poetry after Auschwitz is to be forbidden, or is i...

Jan 13, 2005 / Books & the Arts / John Banville

The Inflation of the Attorney-General The Inflation of the Attorney-General

This essay, from the October 1, 1874, 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 t...

Jan 12, 2005 / Books & the Arts / The Nation

Infinite Jest Infinite Jest

This past March, on the closing day of an international literary conference held in Krakow, Poland, an elderly woman stood up before hundreds of scholars and admirers gathered to...

Jan 6, 2005 / Books & the Arts / Benjamin Paloff

And Justice for All And Justice for All

Affirmative action, in theory, is a matter of distributive justice, which is why liberals and progressives tend to look benevolently on it while conservatives and libertarians co...

Jan 6, 2005 / Books & the Arts / Michael Bérubé

Assigning Responsibility Assigning Responsibility

Defending Rumsfeld, Bush says Rummy's great, That as a planner he has been first rate-- Respected in the White House and the ranks.

Jan 6, 2005 / Books & the Arts / Calvin Trillin

The Hero Within The Hero Within

If many strangers die all at once, as in the tragedy of the tsunami or the Rwanda massacre or a war like the one in Iraq, it is a moral problem, to be dealt with through politics...

Jan 6, 2005 / Books & the Arts / Earl Shorris

Babe Lincoln Babe Lincoln

Jan 6, 2005 / Books & the Arts / Robert Grossman

San Francisco Conference: The Second League San Francisco Conference: The Second League

The delegates may be there to discuss peace, but the cold war is in full bloom at the UN's San Francisco Conference.

Jan 3, 2005 / Feature / Percy E. Corbett

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