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?
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
In four books about Syria and Egypt, the narrative arc of revolution bends toward disappointment.
Sep 6, 2016 / Books & the Arts / Ursula Lindsey
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’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
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
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
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
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’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