Non-fiction

David Brooks

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 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 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 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 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 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

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