Books and Ideas

Justice Talking Justice Talking

In his memoir, Taking Liberties, Aryeh Neier emerges, almost despite himself, as a fascinating man.

Oct 2, 2003 / Books & the Arts / Scott L. Malcomson

In Our Orbit In Our Orbit

In 1990, The Nation ran a dispatch from Portland, Oregon, by editorial board member Elinor Langer titled "The American Neo-Nazi Movement Today." The piece, which took up almost...

Oct 2, 2003 / Books & the Arts / Emily Biuso

London Kills Me London Kills Me

Monica Ali was recently named one of Granta's Best of Young British Novelists--an A-list of red-hot literary youth writing some of the most promising books on the contemporary ...

Oct 2, 2003 / Books & the Arts / Diana Abu-Jaber

Savage Modernism Savage Modernism

A refugee from Nazism and a distinguished New York psychoanalyst, Sandor Rado had thought long and deeply about Hitler's takeover of Germany. Years ago, the writer Otto Friedri...

Sep 25, 2003 / Books & the Arts / Russell Jacoby

The Gray Zone The Gray Zone

On a hot, dusty summer day in 1998, I drove with friends from Smolensk to the village of Zagor'e to meet Ivan Tvardovsky, a survivor of Stalin's forced-labor camps and the brot...

Sep 25, 2003 / Books & the Arts / Lynne Viola

A Kinder, Gentler Fundamentalism A Kinder, Gentler Fundamentalism

In his 1998 book, One Nation, After All, Alan Wolfe chided liberals for their misapprehensions about the political attitudes of ordinary Americans.

Sep 18, 2003 / Books & the Arts / Michael Massing

Shooting Wars Shooting Wars

In her new book, Regarding the Pain of Others, Susan Sontag's focus is upon theaters of war and the way in which photographers have interpreted their role in the production of ...

Sep 18, 2003 / Books & the Arts / Peter Wollen

She’s Gotta Have It She’s Gotta Have It

In his 1997 song "Highlands," Bob Dylan reports a conversation between himself and a waitress. "She says, You don't read women authors, do you?/...

Sep 18, 2003 / Books & the Arts / Claire Dederer

Bleak Haus Bleak Haus

Though still relatively unknown in the English-speaking world, the Austrian novelist and playwright Thomas Bernhard, who died in 1989 at the age of 57, is widely recognized as ...

Sep 11, 2003 / Books & the Arts / Mark M. Anderson

From Protest to Patronage From Protest to Patronage

Bayard Rustin forged a remarkable career as a social activist. Briefly a member of the Young Communist League, he repudiated communism but remained a socialist throughout his l...

Sep 11, 2003 / Books & the Arts / Randall Kennedy

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