Books and Ideas

Letter From Ground Zero Letter From Ground Zero

Why does the United States--born in a people's war for national independence from the greatest empire of its time--have such a difficult time understanding the people's wars of i...

Sep 16, 2004 / Books & the Arts / Jonathan Schell

Dangerous Liaisons Dangerous Liaisons

Conspiracy theories are hard to kill.

Sep 9, 2004 / Books & the Arts / Robert Baer

In the Bedroom (With Stalin) In the Bedroom (With Stalin)

Stalin continues to fascinate--the central mystery within the riddle inside the enigma that was the Soviet Union. If you Google "Stalin, biography," 166,000 websites come up.

Sep 9, 2004 / Books & the Arts / Ronald Grigor Suny

Black American in Paris Black American in Paris

In the spring of 1960, the year of his death, the novelist Richard Wright wrote from Paris to his friend and Dutch translator Margrit de Sablonière:

Sep 9, 2004 / Books & the Arts / James Campbell

The Burden of Memory The Burden of Memory

Perhaps you noticed them in the main square of your town this year--or last year, or any year you've been alive, in any town where you've ever lived: a group of people solemnly a...

Sep 2, 2004 / Books & the Arts / Meline Toumani

The Poverty of Theory The Poverty of Theory

Gertrude Himmelfarb is a remarkable woman. Remarkable, first, because in some respects she is a pioneer.

Sep 2, 2004 / Books & the Arts / Linda Colley

Totem and Taboo Totem and Taboo

It did not take long for a term that not long ago was slanderous to become a cliché.

Sep 2, 2004 / Books & the Arts / Ronald Steel

The Bush Crusade The Bush Crusade

Sacred violence, again unleashed in 2001, could prove as destructive as in 1096.

Sep 2, 2004 / Books & the Arts / James Carroll

The Big Sleep The Big Sleep

From its inception, the AIDS pandemic has generated extraordinary expressions of sadness and anger. The sadness is easy to understand.

Aug 26, 2004 / Books & the Arts / Sheila M. Rothman

Lewis of Arabia Lewis of Arabia

I have witnessed what Bernard Lewis, and later Samuel Huntington, designated the "clash of civilizations" between Christendom and Islam up close in at least two wars.

Aug 26, 2004 / Books & the Arts / Charles Glass

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