Books and Ideas

Let Them Eat Missiles, and Other Myths of the American War Machine

Let Them Eat Missiles, and Other Myths of the American War Machine Let Them Eat Missiles, and Other Myths of the American War Machine

The problem with US military strategy is that it doesn’t fix any of the problems it’s setting out to address.

Feb 25, 2016 / Tom Engelhardt

5 Books: The Pre-History of Donald Trump 5 Books: The Pre-History of Donald Trump

Before there was Trump, there was the rise of the radical right.

Feb 25, 2016 / Timothy Shenk

My Life as a Tour-Bus Driver in LA

My Life as a Tour-Bus Driver in LA My Life as a Tour-Bus Driver in LA

It sent me right back to The Day of the Locust—the masses ultimately want to cannibalize their celebrity gods.

Feb 25, 2016 / Mike Davis

Missionaries of the Middle East

Missionaries of the Middle East Missionaries of the Middle East

How 19th-century American evangelicals came to have second thoughts about doing missionary work in the Ottoman empire.

Feb 25, 2016 / Books & the Arts / Nicholas Guyatt

Ruth Rendell

Whodunit, Ruth Rendell? Whodunit, Ruth Rendell?

The British crime novelist’s work displays a growing acuity of psychological perception and an authority to her moral vision.

Feb 25, 2016 / Books & the Arts / Charles Taylor

‘On the Edge’ Gives No Pleasure

‘On the Edge’ Gives No Pleasure ‘On the Edge’ Gives No Pleasure

Rafael Chirbes’s second work to be translated into English operates like a psychological health tonic: It’s corrosive going down, but afterward the effect is invigorating.

Feb 25, 2016 / Books & the Arts / Aaron Thier

Danny Bowien

‘Mission Chinese Food Cookbook’: Tell Them the Truth ‘Mission Chinese Food Cookbook’: Tell Them the Truth

Not all cookbooks would benefit from the Mission treatment, but, perhaps, quite a few memoirs would.

Feb 25, 2016 / Wei Tchou

A Little Life

A Larger Life A Larger Life

What A Little Life, the churn of narrative nonfiction, and, thus, likely our real views of victims of trauma are missing is the recognition of agency.

Feb 24, 2016 / Larissa Pham

Who Is the Real Progressive: Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders?

Who Is the Real Progressive: Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders? Who Is the Real Progressive: Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders?

Four historians consider how the Democratic candidates fit within the history of the Progressive tradition.

Feb 24, 2016 / Kim Phillips-Fein, Charles Postel, Robert Greene II, and Michael Kazin

Harper Lee

Harper Lee, 1926–2016 Harper Lee, 1926–2016

Lee belonged to a generation of Southern writers who rejected the racist heritage of their childhoods but not the world that nurtured it.

Feb 22, 2016 / Richard Lingeman

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