Books and Ideas

The Loneliest Road The Loneliest Road

Late in the evening in back-road America you tend to pick the motels with a few cars parked in front of the rooms. There's nothing less appealing than an empty courtyard, with ma...

Apr 18, 2002 / Books & the Arts / Alexander Cockburn

Sensation Sensation

A friend and I were sitting around commiserating about the things that get to us: unloading small indignities, comparing thorns. "So there I was," she said, "sitting on the bus a...

Apr 18, 2002 / Books & the Arts / Patricia J. Williams

Education of a Knife Education of a Knife

The third-year medical student held the intravenous catheter, poised to insert it into a patient's vein. Suddenly the patient asked, "Have you done this before?" As the student la...

Apr 18, 2002 / Books & the Arts / Barron H. Lerner

Big Food’s Real Appetites Big Food’s Real Appetites

More than the much-reviled products of Big Tobacco, big helpings and Big Food constitute the number-one threat to America's children, especially when the fare is helpings of fats,...

Apr 18, 2002 / Books & the Arts / Ian Williams

Ghost Buster Ghost Buster

To immerse oneself in Robert Caro's heroic biographies is to come face to face with a shocking but unavoidable realization: Much of what we think we know about money, power and p...

Apr 18, 2002 / Books & the Arts / Eric Alterman

American Dreams, Lost and Found American Dreams, Lost and Found

In this excerpt from his 2002 book, Studs Terkel recalls an encounter with Dennis Kucinich, "the boy-mayor of Cleveland," and follows his political odyssey.

Apr 18, 2002 / Feature / Studs Terkel

It’s Only a Beginning It’s Only a Beginning

Nearly four years have elapsed since that merry month of May when France and the whole world were taken aback by a sudden and momentous upheaval.

Apr 17, 2002 / Books & the Arts / Daniel Singer

Stationary Stationary

Perhaps time is our invention To make things seem to move Like the uncovering tail of the blue jay As it lights its feet on the wet Trembling wood. Perhaps the seasons are really n…

Apr 11, 2002 / Books & the Arts / Laura Manuelidis

The Undertaker’s Art, Exhumed The Undertaker’s Art, Exhumed

"It's a great mistake not to feel pleased when you have the chance," a rich, disfigured spinster advises a frail, well-mannered boy in The Shrimp and the Anemone, the first novel ...

Apr 11, 2002 / Books & the Arts / Caleb Crain

The Balfour Declaration The Balfour Declaration

Great Britain grants a homeland to the homeless Jews.

Apr 5, 2002 / Feature / H. M. Kallen

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