Books & Ideas

Stalin’s Long Shadow

On Leonardo Padura’s The Man Who Loved Dogs.

  • Michelle Chase

The Neoliberal Bailout

Sure, the system worked—we avoided another Great Depression. But it worked much better for some than for others. 

  • Jonathan Kirshner

Breaking Up

Bruce Wagner's Hollywood

  • Rachel Cline

Prime Time

  • Jascha Hoffman

Cultural Cannibal

The journalism of Gabriel García Márquez.

  • Jessica Sequeira

Don’t Trouble Yourself

Nicholas Wade’s A Troublesome Inheritance is scientifically dubious and blind to its racist implications.

  • Philip N. Cohen

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Style Over Substance

On translating Proust.

  • Leland de la Durantaye

Grieving DFW

Karen Green's Bough Down.

  • Nicole Rudick

Snowden and the Ethics of Whistleblowing

Is it naïve to see whistleblowing as a form of civil disobedience?

  • William E. Scheuerman

On the Job: Debating Sex Work

Sex work may be a profession, but that doesn’t make it a source of empowerment.

  • Michaele L. Ferguson

How Feasible is a Social Democratic America?

The case for optimism, even in the face of rising inequality.

  • Daniel DiSalvo

Imperial Methods

Peter Matthiessen’s Orientalism.

  • Joel Whitney

The Weak Self: Christopher Lasch on Narcissism

In Response to Vivian Gornick

  • George Scialabba

In Defense of Narcissism

When narcissism was pathologized, reformers were labeled as narcissists and discontent swept under the rug.

  • Vivian Gornick

Women and Children First

Dora Russell and the evolution of feminisim.

  • Judith Levine

Studying the Rich

Thomas Piketty dismantles received economic wisdom on inequality—including the idea that it is necessary for a rising tide to lift all boats.

  • Mike Konczal

The Possibility of Self-Sacrifice

When is public death meaningful? A case study of political suicide.

  • Oded Na’aman

Nearly Baroque

Nearly Baroque poets want art that puts excess, invention, and ornament first.

  • Stephanie Burt

Hilton Als’s Lonely Black Man

What happens when identity returns to crumble our defenses.

  • Tobi Haslett

Herta Müller’s Language of Resistance

Totalitarianism’s linguistic aggression.

  • Costica Bradatan

The Big Dig

Steven Moore's The Novel: An Alternative History (1600-1800)

  • Roger Boylan

Tiger Couple Gets It Wrong on Immigrant Success

High-earning immigrants often come from highly educated or affluent families to begin with.

  • Stephen Steinberg

Roads to Utopia

Inside Spain’s Model Village

  • Sarah Hill

Why the Success of the Rest is Good for America

Charles Kenny's The Upside of Down.

  • Ali Wyne
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