Books & Ideas

Holy Wars

Secularism is fundamental to liberal governance. But is it sustainable?

The Look of Disaster

Comic books can document the horrors of war better than photos.

Are Women the Silent Sex?

Getting women to participate in group decision-making takes more than superficial equality.

“We Called That Touch”

Race and the Intimate Tangle of American Experience

Lillian Ross: Witness

The pathbreaking work of a not-quite-New Journalist.

The Roots of Black Incarceration

A nineteenth-century memoir sheds light on the origins of the modern prison.

Introducing “Searching for New Physics at CERN”—An Eight-Part Series

An eight-part series on the frontiers of contemporary particle physics.

The Racist Dawn of Capitalism

Recent histories of slavery and capitalism ignore radical black scholarship.

Machinations of Wicked Men

Niall Ferguson’s authorized biography falsifies Henry Kissinger’s intellectual legacy.

The Sweet Life of Sidney Mintz

Remembering one of the century’s great anthropologists and teachers.

Pauli Murray, Beloved Radical

Crusading for black rights, women’s equality, and gender non-conformity.

Should We Trust Forensic Science?

Forensic Experts Respond to Nathan J. Robinson

As a God Might Be

The recurring—and often conflicting—narratives of technology and progress.

Beyond Freedom and Equality

The democratic value of dignity.

Pigs

Two men test their ethical and spiritual mettle by raising and slaughtering pigs.

To Be and to Do

The life’s work of Giorgio Agamben.

Rethinking Evolution

Symbiosis, not just gradual change, may lie at the heart of how evolution works.

For Love of Country

Is emotion the key to the good society?

The Riptide of Technocracy

Is a centralized European Union compatible with democracy?

A Servant Heart

How has neoliberalism become so closely linked with evangelical Christianity?

Our Own Private Disaster

Terrible Schools Are Great for Business

Forensic Pseudoscience

Hair tests, bite marks, blood spatter: it’s mostly magic.

Inequality Is Not Our Fate

The way back to an egalitarian society.

To Hell with Good Intentions

School reform is failing America’s children.

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