Books and Ideas

The Senator Who Took On the CIA

The Senator Who Took On the CIA The Senator Who Took On the CIA

Frank Church and the committee that investigated the US intelligence agencies.

Sep 5, 2023 / Books & the Arts / Adam Hochschild

How Inequality Was Redefined as “Poverty”—Letting Capitalism Off the Hook

How Inequality Was Redefined as “Poverty”—Letting Capitalism Off the Hook How Inequality Was Redefined as “Poverty”—Letting Capitalism Off the Hook

In the 1960s, policy shifted from calling for the redistribution of wealth to enforcing an ideology of personal responsibility.

Sep 5, 2023 / Column / Adolph Reed Jr.

Photographs of Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger displayed during “Secrets of State: The Declassified History of the Chilean Dictatorship,” an exhibition at the Museum of Memory and Human Rights in Santiago, Chile.

Chile: The Secrets the US Government Continues to Hide Chile: The Secrets the US Government Continues to Hide

Fifty years after the military coup that brought down Salvador Allende and installed the Pinochet dicatorship, there are still top secret documents on the US role that must be dec...

Aug 31, 2023 / Peter Kornbluh

Georgia Knecht, 4, browses a bookshelf at Riverside, California, Main Library.

A Book Is a Book Is a Book—Except When It’s an e-Book A Book Is a Book Is a Book—Except When It’s an e-Book

But corporate mega-publishers want purchasing a book to be like renting a movie or streaming an album.

Aug 30, 2023 / Maria Bustillos

Martin Luther King Jr. at the March on Washington

Martin Luther King’s Dream at 60 Martin Luther King’s Dream at 60

King offered Americans the choice between acting in accordance with the constitution and resistance—often violent—to change.  In many ways, we face the same choice today.

Aug 28, 2023 / Eric Foner

Nora Ephron’s Divorce Plot

Nora Ephron’s Divorce Plot Nora Ephron’s Divorce Plot

Her only novel, "Heartburn," looked beyond the love story to uncover the limits of bourgeoisie life and marriage itself.

Aug 28, 2023 / Books & the Arts / Dilara O’Neil

Drew Faust on Growing Up in the ’60s

Drew Faust on Growing Up in the ’60s Drew Faust on Growing Up in the ’60s

A conversation with Harvard’s first woman president about how she became a civil rights and anti-war activist.

Aug 28, 2023 / Q&A / Jon Wiener

 Was the Collapse of US-Russia Relations Inevitable?

Was the Collapse of US-Russia Relations Inevitable? Was the Collapse of US-Russia Relations Inevitable?

How US hubris and Russian paranoia undermined partnership.

Aug 22, 2023 / Feature / Thomas Graham

Former Senator Phil Gramm (R-Tex.) as his hero, Ebenezer Scrooge.

Republicans Are Gaslighting Us on Poverty Republicans Are Gaslighting Us on Poverty

Claims that poverty in America has been eliminated, and that “idleness” is the only barrier to a life of middle-class comfort, would be funny—if they weren’t so dangerous.

Aug 21, 2023 / Brad Swanson

Abandoned buildings in The Bronx.

The Persistence of American Poverty The Persistence of American Poverty


“We could afford to end poverty,” Matthew Desmond tells us. That we don’t is a choice.

Aug 21, 2023 / Books & the Arts / Marcia Chatelain

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