George Packer’s Liberal Imagination George Packer’s Liberal Imagination
What happens when liberalism’s crisis is made into a fable?
Mar 9, 2026 / Books & the Arts / Daniel Bessner
The Greatest Love Is Grieving The Greatest Love Is Grieving
I spent years as a labor organizer. Marguerite Duras’s war novel taught me that the strongest fighters are always the women hurting the most.
Mar 7, 2026 / Haley Mlotek
In Memoriam: the Rev. Jesse Jackson (1941–2026) In Memoriam: the Rev. Jesse Jackson (1941–2026)
The civil-rights activist and founder of the Rainbow PUSH Coalition changed what’s possible in politics.
Mar 6, 2026 / Obituary / John Nichols
Can the Dictionary Keep Up? Can the Dictionary Keep Up?
In Stefan Fatsis’s capacious, and at times score-settling, personal history of the reference book, he reveals what the dictionary can still tell us about language in modern life
Mar 4, 2026 / Books & the Arts / Lora Kelley
Why We Misunderstand the Chinese Internet Why We Misunderstand the Chinese Internet
Journalist Yi-Ling Liu’s The Wall Dancers traces how the Internet affected daily life in China, showing how similar this corner of the Web is to the one experienced in the West.
Mar 3, 2026 / Books & the Arts / Rebecca Liu
Jesse Jackson Reshaped the Democratic Party Jesse Jackson Reshaped the Democratic Party
The candidate may have started as a long-shot contender, but The Nation always took him—and his impact on political history—seriously.
Feb 27, 2026 / Richard Kreitner
Has Contemporary Fiction Ignored the Working Class? Has Contemporary Fiction Ignored the Working Class?
Claire Baglin’s bracing On the Clock gives its readers a close look at work behind the fry station, and in the process asks what experiences are missing from mainstream letters.
Feb 26, 2026 / Books & the Arts / Rachel Vorona Cote
Werner Herzog Between Fact and Fiction Werner Herzog Between Fact and Fiction
The German auteur’s recent book presents a strange, idiosyncratic vision of the concept of “truth,” one that defines how he sees the world and his art.
Feb 25, 2026 / Books & the Arts / Lowry Pressly
Do Humans Really Understand the World’s Disorderly Rivers? Do Humans Really Understand the World’s Disorderly Rivers?
In James C. Scott’s last book, In Praise of Floods, he questions the limits of human hegemony and our misplaced sense that we have any control over the Earth’s depleted watershed....
Feb 24, 2026 / Books & the Arts / Daniel Sherrell