Benjamin & the City of Light Benjamin & the City of Light
In September 1940, with a weak heart and even frailer nerves, Walter Benjamin carried on an old smugglers' path in the French Pyrenean foothills a big black briefcase stuffed wit...
Jan 13, 2000 / Books & the Arts / Andy Merrifield
Round the World in 80 Ways Round the World in 80 Ways
John Ghazvinian is completing a PhD at Oxford University on the early history of tourism.
Jan 13, 2000 / Books & the Arts / John Ghazvinian
Saying It Ain’t So on Joe Saying It Ain’t So on Joe
The cold war has been over for a decade but it lingers on the American home front.
Jan 6, 2000 / Books & the Arts / Stanley I. Kutler
Joseph Heller Joseph Heller
Nelson Algren's 1961 review of Catch-22 is at www.thenation.com.
Dec 15, 1999 / Books & the Arts / Christopher Hitchens
Was Communism Reformable? Was Communism Reformable?
Never in history until the Soviet Union collapsed eight years ago had a great empire gone through such cataclysmic changes and accepted such staggering territorial losses without...
Dec 15, 1999 / Books & the Arts / Robert V. Daniels
What Price, Palestine? What Price, Palestine?
The plan to take Israeli athletes hostage during the 1972 Munich Olympic Games was conceived at a cafe on the Piazza della Rotonda in Rome, in the shadow of the Pantheon and the ...
Dec 15, 1999 / Books & the Arts / Michael Young
Exploding Plastic Inevitable Exploding Plastic Inevitable
The fifties may have been the last great moment when Americans entrusted their dreams of transformation to the material world.
Dec 9, 1999 / Books & the Arts / Joanne Jacobson
Kosovo: On Ends and Means Kosovo: On Ends and Means
The spectacle of human beings acting out mindless violence through pack behavior instills more terror in the heart than perhaps any other event in the natural world.
Dec 9, 1999 / Books & the Arts / George Kenney
Stop-Time in the Levant Stop-Time in the Levant
It is remarkable to what extent almost anything having to do with the Middle East in this country--be it political, cultural, historical or even personal--is permeated by the tri...
Dec 2, 1999 / Books & the Arts / Ammiel Alcalay
Algren’s Question Algren’s Question
He would hang his coat neatly over the back of his chair in the leaden station-house twilight, say he was beat from lack of sleep and lay his head across his arms upon the query-...
Dec 2, 1999 / Books & the Arts / Dan Simon