Non-fiction

Joyce Carol Oates

June 16, 1938: Joyce Carol Oates Is Born June 16, 1938: Joyce Carol Oates Is Born

"Oates believes strongly in the authority of the individual’s experience of reality."

Jun 16, 2015 / Richard Kreitner and The Almanac

Can Science Go Back to the Future?

Can Science Go Back to the Future? Can Science Go Back to the Future?

Trying to bring extinct species back to life is the latest symptom of ecological anxiety.

May 27, 2015 / Books & the Arts / Cathy Gere

How Long Have We Really Been ‘One Nation Under God’?

How Long Have We Really Been ‘One Nation Under God’? How Long Have We Really Been ‘One Nation Under God’?

Kevin Kruse’s new book explores how “Christian America” was invented to fight FDR’s New Deal.

May 19, 2015 / Books & the Arts / Molly Worthen

The Trials of Hannah Arendt

The Trials of Hannah Arendt The Trials of Hannah Arendt

Many have delighted in judging Hannah Arendt, maybe because they have feared her judgment.

May 12, 2015 / Books & the Arts / Corey Robin

Graphs and Legends

Graphs and Legends Graphs and Legends

Raymond Williams tried to save culture from a priestly elite. Can the same be said of the digital humanities?

May 12, 2015 / Books & the Arts / Moira Weigel

Liberalism as a Fighting Faith

Liberalism as a Fighting Faith Liberalism as a Fighting Faith

Larry Sidentop re-imagines the origins of liberalism.

Apr 14, 2015 / Books & the Arts / James Miller

Home Song Home Song

March 24, 1926 Oh breezes blowing on the red hill-top By tall fox-tails, Where through dry twigs and leaves and grasses hop The dull-brown quails! Is there no magic floating in the air To bring to me A breath of you, when I am homesick here Across the sea? Oh black boys holding on the cricket ground A penny race! What other black boy frisking round and round, Plays in my place? When picnic days come with their yearly thrills In warm December, The boy in me romps with you in the hills— Remember! Paris, 1925 This article is part of The Nation’s 150th Anniversary Special Issue. Download a free PDF of the issue, with articles by James Baldwin, Barbara Ehrenreich, Toni Morrison, Howard Zinn and many more, here. Claude McKay (1889–1948), author of the novels Home to Harlem (1928) and Banjo (1929), only published this one poem in The Nation, but he also wrote three essays in the mid-1930s on race relations in New York City—including a firsthand report on the 1935 Harlem riot—and one travel dispatch from North Africa. 

Mar 23, 2015 / Books & the Arts / Claude McKay

The Great Chastening

The Great Chastening The Great Chastening

For Francis Fukuyama and John Dunn, our democratic crisis is the result of an intellectual failure.

Mar 4, 2015 / Books & the Arts / Thomas Meaney

A Volcano of Documents

A Volcano of Documents A Volcano of Documents

How the discovery of police archives has altered the memory of political atrocities in Guatemala.

Feb 25, 2015 / Books & the Arts / Peter Canby

Courting Disaster

Courting Disaster Courting Disaster

Why does the Pakistani military pick unwinnable fights?

Dec 9, 2014 / Books & the Arts / Muhammad Idrees Ahmad

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