Books and Ideas

The Cuban Missile Crisis and Ownership of the World The Cuban Missile Crisis and Ownership of the World

Though the Cuban Missile Crisis was fifty years ago, imperial America and the threat of nuclear war remains. 

Oct 16, 2012 / Noam Chomsky

Peter Dreier: ‘We Stand On the Shoulders’ of Social Justice Activists Peter Dreier: ‘We Stand On the Shoulders’ of Social Justice Activists

From Barbara Ehrenreich to Paul Wellstone, changemakers fighting for equality are the real American heroes. 

Oct 15, 2012 / Books & the Arts / Press Room

Mitt Doesn’t Think That Nearly Half the People In This Country Are Moochers After All Mitt Doesn’t Think That Nearly Half the People In This Country Are Moochers After All

After weeks of acknowledging only that his “47 percent” remarks were “not elegantly stated,” Mitt Romney now says that they were “just completely wrong.”         —News reports   He was, he says, completely wrong; To care for everyone is vital. He’s singing now a different song, And “Etch A Sketch” is that song’s title.

Oct 11, 2012 / Column / Calvin Trillin

Exit Stage Left: The FBI and Student Radicals

Exit Stage Left: The FBI and Student Radicals Exit Stage Left: The FBI and Student Radicals

How in 1960s Berkeley the state waged a two-front war to stamp out opponents, real and imagined, to its rule.

Oct 10, 2012 / Books & the Arts / Steve Wasserman

Shelf Life Shelf Life

A.M. Homes’s May We Be Forgiven; Sherman Alexie’s Blasphemy.

Oct 10, 2012 / Books & the Arts / Aaron Thier

Gay Baiting Gore Vidal: Politics in 1960 Gay Baiting Gore Vidal: Politics in 1960

During his Congressional run in 1960, the late writer and Nation contributor fired back at a less-than-friendly newspaper publisher.

Oct 8, 2012 / Blog / Jon Wiener

Ralph Nader, ‘Lone Ranger,’ Rides Again Ralph Nader, ‘Lone Ranger,’ Rides Again

Nader’s The Seventeen Solutions is a subversive primer that should be read in every high school civics class.

Oct 4, 2012 / Blog / William Greider

Remembering Eric Hobsbawm Remembering Eric Hobsbawm

Hobsbawm’s life and writings will long serve as an inspiration to those who believe that a knowledge of history is essential to working for a better world.

Oct 3, 2012 / Books & the Arts / Eric Foner

Romney Outsources His Foreign Policy to the Neoconservatives Romney Outsources His Foreign Policy to the Neoconservatives

“After 9/11, the neocons captured one Republican president who was naïve about the world. Now…they have captured another would-be Republican president and vice president, both jejune about the world.”       —Maureen Dowd, The New York Times   Advisers to Mitt from the neocon right Believe that America must show its might. Though draft dodgers all, they’re in favor of force— With other folks’ kids on the front lines, of course. Through Romney’s campaign, they have all slithered back— The people who brought you the war in Iraq.

Oct 3, 2012 / Column / Calvin Trillin

Do You Only Have a Brain? On Thomas Nagel Do You Only Have a Brain? On Thomas Nagel

A philosopher’s broadside against Darwinism and materialism is mostly an instrument of mischief.

Oct 3, 2012 / Books & the Arts / Brian Leiter and Michael Weisberg

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