The Latest

Race

How Wall Street Colonized the Caribbean

The expansion of banks such as Citigroup into Cuba, Haiti, and beyond reveal a story of capitalism built on blood, labor, and racial lines.

Law

The Sanctions Game

Donald Trump's “maximum pressure” strategy is doomed to fail, especially as tensions rise between Iran and the United States.

Arts in Society Science

A World of Electric Children

Science fiction author Ted Chiang wrote the story for the Academy Award–winning film Arrival. Now his new collection of short stories gives us further glimpses of possible futures.

Arts in Society

Two Poems

Gender & Sexuality Science

Who’s Your Daddy?

Despite promising a golden age of certainty, DNA-based paternity science has failed to settle the meaning of fatherhood.

Law

Watching the End of the World

Why don’t we make movies about nuclear war anymore?

Arts in Society

Race in Black and White

Slavery and the Civil War were central to the development of photography as both a technology and an art.

Arts in Society

Two Poems

Race Science

Black Resistance in Louisiana’s Cancer Alley

In Revilletown, which was founded by freed slaves, a petrochemical company has seized ownership of an ancestral cemetery. But an attack on the dead is an attack on the living.

Politics

Choosing Hope

Noam Chomsky and Scott Casleton discuss socialism, anarchism, and the fight for progress in U.S. politics today. 

Law

How Cars Transformed Policing

Before the mass adoption of the car, most communities barely had a police force and citizens shared responsibility for enforcing laws.

Arts in Society

Two Poems

Arts in Society

Walt Whitman’s Boys

What gauzy reclamations of the poet miss at his bicentennial.

Class & Inequality

The False Promise of Enlightenment

Three new books paint a chilling portrait of darkness in Wall Street, the law, and technology. But the apocalyptic metaphors obscure the real problem, hindering how we fight back.

Class & Inequality

A New Age of Worker Empowerment

How new approaches to worker organizing are finding success.

Politics Race

“Every Crucifixion Needs a Witness”

Rev. William J. Barber II on civil disobedience, the failures of electoral campaigns, and why the South is key to a political transformation of the country.

Law

The War on Brazilian Democracy

Since taking office in January, President Jair Bolsonaro has not only become less popular. He has also done perhaps irreparable damage to fundamental democratic institutions.

Arts in Society

Last Day

On the day the Earth is supposed to end, Karen is entrusted to open the YMCA. An excerpt from New York Times bestseller Ruta’s new novel.

Arts in Society

Looking for Solidarity

The work of Haitian-Dominican poet Jacques Viau Renaud recalls a time when the two sides of the Caribbean island were united by their visions for an equal society.

Politics

The Anti-Defamation League Is Not What It Seems

Under the guise of fighting hate speech, the ADL has a long history of attacking Arab, Black, and queer people.

Class & Inequality

Apple’s Newest Store and the Perverse Logic of Philanthro-Capitalism

The Apple Carnegie Library embodies recent developments in philanthropy that should trouble us: the uncritical valorization of philanthro-capitalism and the privatization of public goods and public spaces.

Gender & Sexuality

Toward a Democratic Hedonism

What if consent isn’t the best basis for a feminist politics of sex?

Politics

In Search of an Anti-Fascist Language

Combating fascist language is harder than just deleting offending terms. Can we find a creative solution that serves today’s needs?

Politics

Democracy’s Dilemma

How can democratic societies protect—and protect themselves from—the free flow of digital information?

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