The Dumbest Story Ever Told: On David Brooks The Dumbest Story Ever Told: On David Brooks
The Social Animal is a deep and public embarrassment, a lumpy hybrid of fable, neuroscience and social engineering.
May 18, 2011 / Books & the Arts / Gary Greenberg
Countervailing Powers: On John Kenneth Galbraith Countervailing Powers: On John Kenneth Galbraith
John Kenneth Galbraith was a satirist of economics as much as a practitioner of it.
May 11, 2011 / Books & the Arts / Kim Phillips-Fein
Shelf Life Shelf Life
Elizabeth Bishop's Poems and Prose; James Gleick's The Information.
Apr 27, 2011 / Books & the Arts / John Palattella
BOOK REVIEW: Tamara Chalabi’s ‘Late for Tea at the Deer Palace’ BOOK REVIEW: Tamara Chalabi’s ‘Late for Tea at the Deer Palace’
Ahmed Chalabi’s daughter recounts the family’s saga and the ancien regime.
Mar 7, 2011 / Books & the Arts / Bob Dreyfuss
Library Man: On Claude Lévi-Strauss Library Man: On Claude Lévi-Strauss
With a sharp eye for cultural patterns and a keen feel for the shape of a story, Claude Lévi-Strauss was a poet in the laboratory of anthropology.
Jan 19, 2011 / Books & the Arts / Thomas Meaney
Trakt Marks: On Ian Frazier’s Siberia Trakt Marks: On Ian Frazier’s Siberia
Like Siberia itself, Ian Frazier's Travels in Siberia seems simply to drift off into the distance.
Jan 5, 2011 / Books & the Arts / Elaine Blair
The Gutted Writ: On Habeas Corpus The Gutted Writ: On Habeas Corpus
Habeas corpus rescued Walter Rideau from an unjust prison sentence, but during its long history the great writ has been used to muffle the sighs of prisoners as much as to reliev...
Dec 22, 2010 / Books & the Arts / Robert Perkinson
Take the Back Seat: On Chinese Consumerism Take the Back Seat: On Chinese Consumerism
Can the world sustain a country the size of China with an appetite for the good things in life on par with America's?
Dec 9, 2010 / Books & the Arts / Richard McGregor
The View From the Top Table: On Timothy Garton Ash The View From the Top Table: On Timothy Garton Ash
Timothy Garton Ash is a fine writer of "analytic reportage," but his work has lately displayed symptoms of columnitis.
Nov 10, 2010 / Books & the Arts / Stefan Collini
That Seventies Show That Seventies Show
The continuous readjustment of expectations downward: For historians like Jefferson Cowie and Judith Stein, that was the key experience of the 1970s.
Oct 20, 2010 / Books & the Arts / Rick Perlstein