Books and Ideas

JKF riding in a car through a parade.

JFK Assassination: The Final Secrets JFK Assassination: The Final Secrets

The release of the John F. Kennedy papers sets a standard for transparency that must also be applied to the current administration.

Mar 21, 2025 / Peter Kornbluh

A young boy peers out from a hole in a fence as his friends play basketball in a court where police officers are gathering for a patrol in East New York, 1966.

How White-Collar Criminals Plundered a Brooklyn Neighborhood How White-Collar Criminals Plundered a Brooklyn Neighborhood

Stacy Horn’s Killing Fields documents how East New York was ransacked by the real estate industry and abandoned by the city in the process.

Mar 20, 2025 / Books & the Arts / Kristen Martin

Mario Savio, a leader of the University of California Free Speech Movement, center, with Jack Weinberg and Susan Goldberg and other arrested demonstrators during their trial, Berkeley, California, 1965.

America Needs a New Free Speech Movement America Needs a New Free Speech Movement

Donald Trump is showing us what an unaccountable class of corporate decision-makers looks like—and it looks like a lot of fear, and a terrible loss of freedom.

Mar 19, 2025 / Zephyr Teachout

Sherrod Brown: Three decades of talking about the dignity of work wasn’t enough to save him.

How the American Left Became Conservative How the American Left Became Conservative

Against the radical, if reactionary, experiment run from the White House, everyone from Democratic leaders in Congress to MSNBC hosts have turned to the defense of institutions.

Mar 18, 2025 / Michael Kazin

Trump Took Over the Kennedy Center, but Silencing the Arts Will Not Be So Easy

Trump Took Over the Kennedy Center, but Silencing the Arts Will Not Be So Easy Trump Took Over the Kennedy Center, but Silencing the Arts Will Not Be So Easy

Our last best hope for sharing, shaping, and wrangling over independent ideas may turn out to be America’s scrappy and disparate arts spaces—if they can hang on financially.

Mar 18, 2025 / Alisa Solomon

A view of the Butano Redwood Canyon in Pescadero, California, 2011.

Why “The Living Mountain” Endures Why “The Living Mountain” Endures

Nan Shepard’s classic of nature writing and memoir is an education in how to reorient one's attention to a landscape and its lifeforms, human and nonhuman.

Mar 13, 2025 / Books & the Arts / Jenny Odell

Andrée Blouin’s Revolutionary Lives

Andrée Blouin’s Revolutionary Lives Andrée Blouin’s Revolutionary Lives

The African political leader’s autobiography, My Country, Africa, also offers a larger story of empire, oppression, and resistance on the continent.

Mar 12, 2025 / Books & the Arts / Bill Fletcher Jr.

Are Men OK?

Are Men OK? Are Men OK?

According to Richard V. Reeves, American society is failing to address the needs of men and boys. Are his solutions the flip side of feminism—or just another form of backlash?

Mar 11, 2025 / Feature / Eamon Whalen

Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk joins President Donald Trump during an executive order signing in the Oval Office at the White House on February 11, 2025, in Washington, DC.

The Ballad of Elon Musk The Ballad of Elon Musk

Mar 11, 2025 / Column / Calvin Trillin

Nation Poetry

Kakakin Kakakin

Mar 11, 2025 / Books & the Arts / Hussain Ahmed

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