Dignity’s Due Dignity’s Due
Why are philosophers invoking the notion of human dignity to revitalize theories of political ethics?
Oct 16, 2013 / Books & the Arts / Samuel Moyn
Shelf Life Shelf Life
Lucien Jaume’s Tocqueville: The Aristocratic Sources of Liberty.
Oct 16, 2013 / Books & the Arts / Elias Altman
Eric Schlosser and the Illusion of Nuclear Weapons Safety Eric Schlosser and the Illusion of Nuclear Weapons Safety
A new book explores the alarming threat of accidental nuclear detonations.
Oct 15, 2013 / Books & the Arts / Robert Jervis
Was Your Grandmother a Communist?—and Five More Questions for Jonathan Lethem Was Your Grandmother a Communist?—and Five More Questions for Jonathan Lethem
Lethem’s new novel, Dissident Gardens, involves three generations of left-wing activists in New York City.
Oct 9, 2013 / Books & the Arts / Jon Wiener
Laramie Revisited: The Myth of Matthew Laramie Revisited: The Myth of Matthew
A new book by Stephen Jimenez tells a very different story about the killing of Matthew Shepard by Aaron McKinney.
Oct 9, 2013 / Books & the Arts / JoAnn Wypijewski
The Notorious Life of a Nineteenth-Century Abortionist The Notorious Life of a Nineteenth-Century Abortionist
Novelist Kate Manning richly reimagines Madame Restell as a defender of women from the horrors of poverty, male privilege and their own physiology.
Oct 9, 2013 / Books & the Arts / Katha Pollitt
Explaining Ted Cruz’s Behavior Explaining Ted Cruz’s Behavior
Does he have a plan that the others can’t see? Is this man as smart as the devil? Or is he, to put it in carpenter’s terms, A guy who’s a bubble off level?
Oct 9, 2013 / Column / Calvin Trillin
Does the Chilean Experience Offer a Way Out for Egypt? Does the Chilean Experience Offer a Way Out for Egypt?
My country can perhaps offer Egyptians a strategy whereby a fearful and divided populace can rid itself of an oppressive regime.
Oct 8, 2013 / Books & the Arts / Ariel Dorfman
Citizen Marx Citizen Marx
By refusing to treat Marx as our contemporary, Jonathan Sperber has brought him back to life.
Oct 8, 2013 / Books & the Arts / Sam Stark
Atavistic Sonnet Atavistic Sonnet
Shadow of the gull on the airport wall, lunging as the fuselage vaults above the meadow. Hollow in the cornrow where the hobo slept, then a backhoe filling up the furrow. Misery of clocks in neon glare, whereabouts of warblers and island foxes, an old flame googled from the dead letter office, simple as the still-warm bench at dusk. Typing or sewing, or bringing down a fever through a length of knotted string and a rusted staple gun. Here comes the tattooed witch with her drum while the royals wait by the limousine grinning. Shadow of the gull on the airport wall, shallows in the stairs where we fell and stepped, hollow in the cornrow where the hobo slept, a backhoe filling the furrow.
Oct 8, 2013 / Books & the Arts / Susan Stewart