Godard’s Inferno Godard’s Inferno
Michelangelo and Ulysses came home from the war with knapsacks bulging, bearing the reward for hardships suffered and inflicted. "We promised you the world," the soldiers boasted...
Dec 2, 2004 / Books & the Arts / Stuart Klawans
False Promises False Promises
In American Dream, his masterful new book about welfare reform, Jason DeParle brings together two groups of people who rarely seem to meet: welfare policy-makers and welfare reci...
Dec 2, 2004 / Books & the Arts / Jennifer Egan
Body Heat Body Heat
After the Kinsey Report but before the first Penthouse Forum, John Updike wrote, "He kneels in a kind of sickness between her spread legs.
Dec 2, 2004 / Books & the Arts / Mark Lotto
The War That Never Was The War That Never Was
As war threatened Europe in the 1930s, a physicist turned to a psychiatrist to help understand the impending violence.
Dec 2, 2004 / Books & the Arts / Russell Jacoby
The Invisible Hand Holds the Remote The Invisible Hand Holds the Remote
What does it mean that a whopping 70 percent of Americans, according to a recent New York Times-CBS News poll, believe that mass culture is responsible for debasing our moral val...
Nov 30, 2004 / Books & the Arts / Robert Scheer
Hostile Obituary for Derrida Hostile Obituary for Derrida
On October 10, the New York Times published a front-page obituary for French philosopher Jacques Derrida.
Nov 24, 2004 / Books & the Arts / Ross Benjamin
Money for Nothing Money for Nothing
To hear conservatives describe it, the only video appearances that hurt John Kerry more than that of Osama bin Laden were those of Hollywood celebrities, who united behind his ca...
Nov 24, 2004 / Books & the Arts / Eric Alterman
The Interpreters of Maladies The Interpreters of Maladies
Derrida was often misunderstood, but rarely worse than in his New York Times obituary. Ross Benjamin explains, in a web-only feature.
Nov 24, 2004 / Books & the Arts / Adam Shatz
Days of Rage Days of Rage
On November 4, 1979, a few months after the collapse of the Iranian monarchy and the inauguration of Iran's Islamic Republic, a group of college students calling themselves the M...
Nov 24, 2004 / Books & the Arts / Reza Aslan
Dissent or Assent? Dissent or Assent?
Michael Walzer's best book is not, unfortunately, his most influential.
Nov 24, 2004 / Books & the Arts / George Scialabba