Books and Ideas

The Anti-Warrior The Anti-Warrior

Christianity in this country has become almost synonymous with right-wing fanaticism, conservative politics and--courtesy of Mel Gibson--a brutally sadistic version of religious ...

Jun 24, 2004 / Books & the Arts / Dan Wakefield

The Searcher

The Searcher The Searcher

In 1965, nearly forty years before the publication of Where I Was From, her most recent and most sustained meditation on her native state of California, Joan Didion wrote “John Way...

Jun 24, 2004 / Books & the Arts / Hilton Als

Unfulfilled Promise Unfulfilled Promise

Jim Weinstein has spent most of his adult life writing about the failures and possibilities of the American left.

Jun 21, 2004 / Books & the Arts / Joel Rogers

Advise and Consent Advise and Consent

Foreign policy is that rare field in which essay-writing matters.

Jun 17, 2004 / Books & the Arts / Scott L. Malcomson

By Any Means Necessary By Any Means Necessary

In June 1965 James Farmer, leader of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) and longtime champion of Gandhian nonviolence, arrived in Bogalusa, Louisiana, to support a desegregat...

Jun 17, 2004 / Books & the Arts / Mike Marqusee

Scenes From a Marriage Scenes From a Marriage

Conventional wisdom suggests Israelis and Palestinians are bitter enemies: two sides mired in a century-long conflict marked by violence, hatred and an unbounded reservoir of bru...

Jun 17, 2004 / Books & the Arts / Jonathan Shainin

Bourgeois Dystopias Bourgeois Dystopias

The suburbs don't feel suburban anymore.

Jun 10, 2004 / Books & the Arts / Eric Klinenberg

Le Gai Savoir Le Gai Savoir

"Paris is a very old story," Henry James wrote in 1878--so old, in fact, that it's hard to write about it without falling into clichés about chestnut trees, couture, freed...

Jun 10, 2004 / Books & the Arts / Brenda Wineapple

Ugly Beauty Ugly Beauty

In the fall of 1958, the second book by a young British poet named Philip Larkin made it across the ocean and into the consciousness of American poetry.

Jun 10, 2004 / Books & the Arts / Melanie Rehak

On Native Ground On Native Ground

I've long considered E.L. Doctorow the most American of contemporary writers--in a particularly classic sense.

Jun 10, 2004 / Books & the Arts / David L. Ulin

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