Books and Ideas

Dissent at 50 Dissent at 50

In the summer of 1953, the New School for Social Research hung a yellow curtain over a mural by the Mexican artist José Clemente Orozco. Orozco's transgression?

Oct 14, 2004 / Books & the Arts / Scott Sherman

Picking Up the Pieces Picking Up the Pieces

Brian Wilson began recording his masterpiece, Smile, in 1966; the project collapsed a year later, unfinished.

Oct 7, 2004 / Books & the Arts / Douglas Wolk

Office Politics Office Politics

As one of those pathetic evolutionary throwbacks who has never used e-mail or the Internet, and has hardly ever handled a mobile phone, I can approach this book with all the supr...

Oct 7, 2004 / Books & the Arts / Terry Eagleton

Rhythm Nation Rhythm Nation

Since Fidel Castro's brief fainting spell during a speech in June 2001, Miami, Havana and Washington have been caldrons of feverish speculation on his succession and the politics...

Oct 7, 2004 / Books & the Arts / Ann Louise Bardach

Liberal Hawk Down Liberal Hawk Down

This essay is adapted from Anatol Lieven's next book, America Right or Wrong: An Anatomy of American Nationalism, to be published this month by Oxford University Press.

Oct 7, 2004 / Books & the Arts / Anatol Lieven

When Presidents Lie When Presidents Lie

Official dishonesty is never worthwhile.

Oct 7, 2004 / Books & the Arts / Eric Alterman

‘There Are No Innocents’ ‘There Are No Innocents’

An oppressive and beleaguered empire, a terrorist international, a storm raging in the world press about torture, right-wing Christians on the march against moral decline and the...

Oct 7, 2004 / Beat the Devil / Alexander Cockburn

This Canadian Life This Canadian Life

The reviewer's galley of Natasha, David Bezmozgis's short-story collection about a Russian émigré family in Toronto, begins with words not from the writer but the p...

Sep 30, 2004 / Books & the Arts / D.T. Max

The Human Stain The Human Stain

The question has been asked: Was Franz Kafka human? He seems to have had doubts himself.

Sep 30, 2004 / Books & the Arts / John Banville

The Enigma of Return The Enigma of Return

In the largest exodus in recorded history, millions of refugees migrated across the brand new border after India was partitioned in 1947.

Sep 30, 2004 / Books & the Arts / Amitava Kumar

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