Reading Lists

Our weekly Reading Lists compile editors’ selections from Boston Review’s decades-long archive that speak to the pressing political, cultural, and intellectual debates of our time.

Sign up for our email newsletter to have them delivered straight to your inbox. A selection appear online, below.

After Affirmative Action

Can education fix inequality?

The Pursuit of Empire

The United States routinely contradicts its founding ideals.

Radical Pride

The rebellious origins of LGBTQ liberation

Fantasies of Fatherhood

Paternity is more complex than the stories we tell about it.

AI and the Specter of Automation

In a just world, productivity-enhancing technology would create more leisure and prosperity for everyone.

May Day and the Movement for Shorter Working Hours

International Workers’ Day is an occasion to build solidarity and rethink political economy.

Presidential Crimes

Trump’s indictment and arrest break with decades of executive impunity.

The Iraq War’s Catastrophic Consequences

Twenty years later, the U.S.-led invasion continues to shape geopolitics for the worse.

Women of the World, Unite!

A reading list for International Women’s Day

Animal Rights Are Human Rights

On the imperative of inter-species solidarity.

The Future of the Welfare State

Strengthening social insurance programs will require a break from politics as usual.

Is Humanitarian Intervention Possible?

Using military force to solve humanitarian crises gained popularity after the Cold War, but decades of foreign policy blunders have called it into question.

The Black Scholars Ron DeSantis Doesn’t Want Students to Read

Among them are Kimberlé Crenshaw, Angela Davis, bell hooks, and Robin D. G. Kelley. You can read them here.

At 79, Angela Davis Is Still Fighting for a Better World

A reading list in honor of the radical philosopher’s birthday.

A Century of the Frankfurt School

The Institute for Social Research was founded one hundred years ago. We ignore its prescient theorists at our peril.

Twenty of Our Most Loved Essays of 2022

From politics, labor, and race to philosophy, literature, and sex.

Ten Essays You Might Have Missed

Don’t let these pieces pass you by!

Is There a Cure for Medical Racism?

From unequal rates of COVID-19 death and hospitalization to biased pulse oximeters, medicine must reckon with the racism in its midst.

The Meaning of the FTX Meltdown

The crypto exchange’s spectacular failure is the product of a bankrupt corporate culture.

Affirmative Action Under Threat

If the Supreme Court deems it unconstitutional, how else might we challenge entrenched inequalities?

Putting Elections in Perspective

Can more parties fix American democracy?—and other questions about our electoral system as the midterms approach.

What Does Fascism Mean Today?

And does it apply to the far right?

The Value of Care Work

Without it, society would fall apart.

Public Trust Is a Political Problem—Not Just an Epistemic One

It won’t be solved through fact checking.

Get our newsletter

Vital reading on politics, ideas, and culture to your inbox


A political and literary forum, independent and nonprofit since 1975

Registered 501(c)(3) organization