Books and Ideas

The Chastening of the Times The Chastening of the Times

On March 9, 2003, a distinguished group of high-ranking politicians and journalists descended on the Bryant Park Hotel to attend a wedding reception for the then-executive editor...

Sep 23, 2004 / Books & the Arts / Scott Sherman

Debating the Great Debate Debating the Great Debate

This essay, from the November 11, 1960 issue of The Nation, is a special selection from The Nation Digital Archive. If you want to read everything The Nation has ever published on ...

Sep 22, 2004 / Books & the Arts / Various Contributors

Of Human Bondage Of Human Bondage

In the sequence of revolutions that remade the Atlantic world between 1776 and 1825, the Haitian Revolution is rarely given its due, yet without it the progressive credentials of...

Sep 16, 2004 / Books & the Arts / Robin Blackburn

Difficult Loves Difficult Loves

It wasn't until 1996, when President Bill Clinton declared April to be National Poetry Month, that the eminent translator and poet Richard Howard truly grasped the significance o...

Sep 16, 2004 / Books & the Arts / John Palattella

Letter From Ground Zero Letter From Ground Zero

Why does the United States--born in a people's war for national independence from the greatest empire of its time--have such a difficult time understanding the people's wars of i...

Sep 16, 2004 / Books & the Arts / Jonathan Schell

Dangerous Liaisons Dangerous Liaisons

Conspiracy theories are hard to kill.

Sep 9, 2004 / Books & the Arts / Robert Baer

In the Bedroom (With Stalin) In the Bedroom (With Stalin)

Stalin continues to fascinate--the central mystery within the riddle inside the enigma that was the Soviet Union. If you Google "Stalin, biography," 166,000 websites come up.

Sep 9, 2004 / Books & the Arts / Ronald Grigor Suny

Black American in Paris Black American in Paris

In the spring of 1960, the year of his death, the novelist Richard Wright wrote from Paris to his friend and Dutch translator Margrit de Sablonière:

Sep 9, 2004 / Books & the Arts / James Campbell

The Burden of Memory The Burden of Memory

Perhaps you noticed them in the main square of your town this year--or last year, or any year you've been alive, in any town where you've ever lived: a group of people solemnly a...

Sep 2, 2004 / Books & the Arts / Meline Toumani

The Poverty of Theory The Poverty of Theory

Gertrude Himmelfarb is a remarkable woman. Remarkable, first, because in some respects she is a pioneer.

Sep 2, 2004 / Books & the Arts / Linda Colley

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