History

Black as We Wanna Be

Black as We Wanna Be Black as We Wanna Be

Trying to remedy racism on its own intellectual terrain is like trying to extinguish a fire by striking another match. The fiction must be unbelieved, the fire stamped out.

Sep 15, 2016 / Books & the Arts / Matthew McKnight

Who Freed the Slaves?

Who Freed the Slaves? Who Freed the Slaves?

For some time now, the answer has not been the abolitionists.

Sep 13, 2016 / Books & the Arts / Stephanie McCurry

Behind the Sun

Behind the Sun Behind the Sun

In four books about Syria and Egypt, the narrative arc of revolution bends toward disappointment.

Sep 6, 2016 / Books & the Arts / Ursula Lindsey

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How a Nun, a Vet, and a Housepainter Stood Up to the Threat of Nuclear Weapons How a Nun, a Vet, and a Housepainter Stood Up to the Threat of Nuclear Weapons

Dan Zak’s Almighty reminds readers that the United States’ poisonous and very expensive history of nuclear-weapons production is far from over.

Aug 31, 2016 / Frida Berrigan

Warren Hinckle and staffers

Warren Hinckle’s Truth-to-Power Journalism and Politics Broke the Conventional Wisdom Warren Hinckle’s Truth-to-Power Journalism and Politics Broke the Conventional Wisdom

As the editor of Ramparts, he helped shape the radicalism of the 1960s, and kept on challenging injustice and “professional megabuck politics.”

Aug 26, 2016 / John Nichols

Ghostly Presences

Ghostly Presences Ghostly Presences

Unable to write effectively but unable to remain silent, W.G. Sebald, like the narrator of The Emigrants, is condemned to speak unsatisfactorily.

Aug 17, 2016 / Books & the Arts / Becca Rothfeld

Naming America’s Own Genocide

Naming America’s Own Genocide Naming America’s Own Genocide

In a commanding new book, Benjamin Madley calls California’s 19th-century elected officials “the primary architects of annihilation” against Native Americans in the state. Reading ...

Aug 17, 2016 / Books & the Arts / Richard White

Yaa Gyasi

Leaving Home to Go Home Leaving Home to Go Home

Yaa Gyasi’s ideas about fiction are suffused with her lifelong attention to the fluctuating shadows that race casts on American life.

Aug 12, 2016 / Erin Vanderhoof

Before the 1 Percenters, There Were the Uzedas

Before the 1 Percenters, There Were the Uzedas Before the 1 Percenters, There Were the Uzedas

In The Viceroys, Frederico De Roberto’s novel of the Risorgimento, the Uzeda family corrupts everything it touches.

Aug 10, 2016 / Books & the Arts / Frederika Randall

Oneida John Humphrey Noyes

Oneida’s Original, Utopian Vision Oneida’s Original, Utopian Vision

Championing the free market is compatible with the company’s original free-love doctrine: The fierce desire of men to feel competent bankrolls both.

Aug 8, 2016 / Hannah Gold

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