Books and Ideas

Stop the Steal rally

The Long History of American Cruelty The Long History of American Cruelty

A conversation with Adam Serwer about the ideological roots of Trumpism, the failures of the Reconstruction era, and his new book, The Cruelty Is the Point.

Aug 12, 2021 / Q&A / Daniel Steinmetz-Jenkins

Seeing the Climate Crisis Through the Eyes of Henry Thoreau

Seeing the Climate Crisis Through the Eyes of Henry Thoreau Seeing the Climate Crisis Through the Eyes of Henry Thoreau

“I walk toward one of our ponds,” Thoreau wrote in “Slavery in Massachusetts,” “but what signifies the beauty of nature when men are base?”

Aug 11, 2021 / Feature / Wen Stephenson

Democracy’s Money Problem

Democracy’s Money Problem Democracy’s Money Problem

Comparing democracies across the world, a new book reveals that when it comes to financing elections they are not that democratic at all. 

Aug 11, 2021 / Books & the Arts / Jan-Werner Müller

College student gets a Covid vaccine

Unintended Consequences Unintended Consequences

Republicans object to masks While going about their daily tasks. To rule that folks must vaccinate, They say, makes this a Nazi state. The surges now are all located Among those pr…

Aug 10, 2021 / Column / Calvin Trillin

The Fuller Court.

Whose Side Is the Supreme Court On? Whose Side Is the Supreme Court On?

Many people who came of age in the 1950s and 60s view the Supreme Court as a force for good when it comes to race. But the court has often been the most anti-progressive branch of ...

Aug 9, 2021 / Books & the Arts / Randall Kennedy

Chinese miners in California, c. 1862

The Anti-Asian Roots of Today’s Anti-Immigrant Politics The Anti-Asian Roots of Today’s Anti-Immigrant Politics

Long before Trump, politicians on the country’s West Coast mobilized a white working-class base through violent hate of Chinese and Japanese immigrants.

Aug 9, 2021 / Feature / Mari Uyehara

Luchita Hurtado, 1940 / Untitled (1971) Courtesy The Estate of Luchita Hurtado and Hauser & Wirth

Luchita Hurtado’s Spiritual Modernism Luchita Hurtado’s Spiritual Modernism

Her paintings strove to convey the ways sublime experience could be found in nature and the body.  

Aug 4, 2021 / Books & the Arts / Max Pearl

Phone

Sell This Book! Sell This Book!

Corporate publishing wants to turn all readers into renters. We’re trying to stop them.

Aug 3, 2021 / Column / Maria Bustillos

Companies Struggle To Fill Low-Wage Positions In Tight Job Market

The Fiction of Meaningful Work The Fiction of Meaningful Work

Kikuko Tsumura’s new novel examines what unites jobs good or bad: the stories we tell ourselves to cope with how much toil sucks in the first place.

Aug 3, 2021 / Books & the Arts / Marie Solis

Washington Square Park protest

Welcome to Washington Square Park, Capital of Woke Bohemia Welcome to Washington Square Park, Capital of Woke Bohemia

A vibrant new youth scene is taking shape in Greenwich Village. Some people want to shut it down.

Jul 30, 2021 / Richard Goldstein

x