Dreams Built and Broken: On Ada Louise Huxtable Dreams Built and Broken: On Ada Louise Huxtable
How an architecture critic made New York City her touchstone for discussions of public space.
Apr 15, 2013 / Books & the Arts / Alexandra Lange
Sugar Rush and Stomachache: On ‘NYC 1993’ Sugar Rush and Stomachache: On ‘NYC 1993’
The New Museum tries to explain why the city's art scene changed in 1993.
Apr 15, 2013 / Books & the Arts / Barry Schwabsky
Kircher’s Cosmos: On Athanasius Kircher Kircher’s Cosmos: On Athanasius Kircher
How did a man who got so many things wrong become an intellectual celebrity in his own lifetime?
Apr 3, 2013 / Books & the Arts / Paula Findlen
Hunter-Blatherer: On Jared Diamond Hunter-Blatherer: On Jared Diamond
An unreliable anthropologist of traditional societies is a no less dubious diagnostician of the contemporary world.
Apr 3, 2013 / Books & the Arts / Stephen Wertheim
Unreal Choices: On The Feminine Mystique Unreal Choices: On The Feminine Mystique
For Betty Friedan, feminism was humanism: a question of growth, maturation and identity.
Mar 20, 2013 / Books & the Arts / Julia M. Klein
Neighborhood Neighborhood
Our brick houses had one floor, storm windows to install in October, heavy brass doorknockers, screened-in patios, lawn jockeys, and front porches with wrought iron railings. The rusty bicycles flopped on the driveways, the smell of peat moss in wheelbarrows, the hum of fans from Sears Roebuck, sidewalks turning the color of grocery bags when wet. The luck of a clover with one appended leaf. We had board games like Monopoly shared by three families, the little green hotels disappearing just like the old market and the Bargain Center. The braided oaks with crooked tree houses, the burnt leaves, black fish swimming in air. And on an unseasonably sunny day in late October, I found my mother's floral umbrella and went strolling into the breeze under its spinning canopy, sucking a lemon.
Mar 20, 2013 / Books & the Arts / Judith Harris
The Strange Arcane: On George Saunders The Strange Arcane: On George Saunders
In the short stories of Tenth of December, the impression of chaos belies a careful design.
Mar 20, 2013 / Books & the Arts / Aaron Thier
The Quarrels of Others: On Anti-Semitism The Quarrels of Others: On Anti-Semitism
With Anti-Judaism, David Nirenberg has recast the debate about the origins and nature of anti-Semitism in Western thought.
Mar 20, 2013 / Books & the Arts / R.I. Moore
No Exit? Greece’s Ongoing Crisis No Exit? Greece’s Ongoing Crisis
How do Greece’s economists and writers explain its social predicament?
Mar 13, 2013 / Books & the Arts / Mark Mazower
Two Rights and A Wrong: On Taner Akçam Two Rights and A Wrong: On Taner Akçam
A historian’s view of why political demands, past and present, have weighed on Turkish debates about the Armenian genocide.
Mar 13, 2013 / Books & the Arts / Holly Case