Books and Ideas

The Mysteries of Adam Smith

The Mysteries of Adam Smith The Mysteries of Adam Smith

How to understand Adam Smith’s politics

Sep 3, 2022 / Books & the Arts / Glory Liu

Where Solidarity, Abolition, and Queer History Meet

Where Solidarity, Abolition, and Queer History Meet Where Solidarity, Abolition, and Queer History Meet

Hugh Ryan’s The Women’s House of Detention: A Queer History of a Forgotten Prison makes a compelling case for abolition as a central part of queer politics.

Sep 1, 2022 / Books & the Arts / Naomi Gordon-Loebl

Emmett Till looks into the distance. He is wearing a hat.

How Emmett Till’s Death Led to the Invention of the “Liberal Media” How Emmett Till’s Death Led to the Invention of the “Liberal Media”

The young Black man’s murder is an outrage that still haunts our history. So do the lies in the media set in motion by the discovery of his mutilated body 67 years ago today.

Aug 31, 2022 / Chris Lamb

Peter Weiss

Peter Weiss and the Riddle of Representation Peter Weiss and the Riddle of Representation

His painterly fictions strive against language’s limitations to accurately describe the world in all its horror and randomness.

Aug 30, 2022 / Books & the Arts / Natasha Boyd

In Filipino Politics, What Is Fact and What Is Fiction?

In Filipino Politics, What Is Fact and What Is Fiction? In Filipino Politics, What Is Fact and What Is Fiction?

A novel by Miguel Syjuco, I Was the President’s Mistress!!, deconstructs the spectacle of celebrity, corruption, and polyphony that defines the nation’s political contests.

Aug 29, 2022 / Books & the Arts / Bryony Lau

Searching for Local Identity in “The Bear” and “Chicago Party Aunt”

Searching for Local Identity in “The Bear” and “Chicago Party Aunt” Searching for Local Identity in “The Bear” and “Chicago Party Aunt”

The FX drama and Netflix animation both attempt to embody the city of Chicago. That’s an increasingly difficult task when the city itself is a jumbled simulacrum of its own past.

Aug 25, 2022 / Ryan Zickgraf

Howard Zinn speaking

Howard Zinn at 100: Remembering “The People’s Historian” Howard Zinn at 100: Remembering “The People’s Historian”

Zinn made no pretense of neutrality. He believed that “in a world of conflict,” it was the historian’s job to advocate for the oppressed.

Aug 24, 2022 / Robert Cohen and Sonia Murrow

Havana, Cuba.

Can Cuba’s Past Help Us Understand Its Future? Can Cuba’s Past Help Us Understand Its Future?

Ada Ferrer’s Cuba offers a capacious and wide-ranging history of the country’s centuries-old struggle to liberate itself from empire and economic upheaval.

Aug 24, 2022 / Books & the Arts / Ed Morales

Trump

Youthfulness Youthfulness

There’s talk of Biden’s age, but not of Trump’s. So how’s The Donald’s youthfulness conveyed? When he begins to bully or he whines, He sounds as if he’s still in second grade.

Aug 23, 2022 / Column / Calvin Trillin

World War II veterans and military men pay their respect as they lay wreaths at the monument of the Soviet Army in central Sofia on May 9, 2008.

Balkan Dispatch: Bulgaria’s Crisis of Confidence Balkan Dispatch: Bulgaria’s Crisis of Confidence

Caught between a Russian past and a NATO future, the poorest country in the EU faces a political crisis—and a struggle over competing visions of national pride.

Aug 22, 2022 / Jeet Heer

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