Nation Topics - Cultural Criticism and Analysis | The Nation

A womanizing gospel king and black-pride pop star, Sam
Cooke led a short life filled with contradiction.

Joseph Horowitz diligently lays out the immense problems that face American classical music today, and his warnings cannot go unheeded.

Barbara Ehrenreich probes a deeper level of white-collar angst: people who lose or quit their corporate jobs and routinely spend months, even years, finding another.

It has almost become a sadness to review a novel by Salman Rushdie. Shalimar the Clown is no exception.

It can't be easy to rein in a writer as successful as Zadie Smith. Her new novel, On Beauty, proves it's almost impossible.

Orgasms used to be a secret, then they became a right.
Now they're a duty. It's time to explode the myths.

Daniel Fuchs's The Golden West is best read as an
author's requiem for the Hollywood he loved.

The rich legacy of former Nation editor and activist
Carey McWilliams is on full display in three books.

Recent movies including War of the Worlds and Land of the Dead reflect today's political landscape.

Adam Kirsch prefers his own ideas about poetry to actual
poems.