Books and Ideas

Franklin Delano Roosevelt at his inauguration in 1933.

When FDR Took On the Supreme Court When FDR Took On the Supreme Court

The standard narrative of Roosevelt's court-packing efforts casts them as a failure. But what if they were a success?

Jun 27, 2023 / Books & the Arts / John Fabian Witt

How the Supreme Court Got This Powerful

How the Supreme Court Got This Powerful How the Supreme Court Got This Powerful

It goes all the way back to Marbury v. Madison.

Jun 27, 2023 / Stan Mack

What My Parents Taught Me About Bodily Autonomy

What My Parents Taught Me About Bodily Autonomy What My Parents Taught Me About Bodily Autonomy

I learned from an early age that honoring an individual’s wishes for their body is a sacred act.

Jun 27, 2023 / Feature / Angela Garbes

Don DeLillo’s Cold Wars

Don DeLillo’s Cold Wars Don DeLillo’s Cold Wars

His 1980s novels take the story of America’s postwar years, usually seen as a triumphal rise to perpetual dominance, and converts it into one about a long and chaotic decline.

Jun 26, 2023 / Books & the Arts / Siddhartha Deb

Without Apology: Abortion in Literature

Without Apology: Abortion in Literature Without Apology: Abortion in Literature

Some of the most powerful, important abortion narratives show working-class women terminating their pregnancies without regret or anguish.

Jun 26, 2023 / Feature / Edna Bonhomme

Bookforum Logo

“The Nation” Leads the Relaunch of “Bookforum” “The Nation” Leads the Relaunch of “Bookforum”

Resurrecting a leading voice of US literary criticism, the quarterly will remain editorially independent, with the first new issue out August 2023.

Jun 22, 2023 / Press Room

The Atacama desert, 2022.

Nona Fernandez and the Black Hole of Collective Memory Nona Fernandez and the Black Hole of Collective Memory

Her book-length essay Voyager examines life after Pinochet—and the disjunctures in public remembering the era produced—through an exploration of the stars. 

Jun 22, 2023 / Books & the Arts / Amanda Paige Inman

Cormac McCarthy, 1973.

Cormac McCarthy’s Unforgiving Parables of American Empire Cormac McCarthy’s Unforgiving Parables of American Empire

He demonstrated how the frontier wasn’t an incubator of democratic equality but a place of unrelenting pain, cruelty, and suffering.

Jun 21, 2023 / Books & the Arts / Greg Grandin

Jesse Hagopian, his father, and his brother in Morgantown, Miss.

Celebrating Juneteenth by Emancipating History Celebrating Juneteenth by Emancipating History

A Black family’s pilgrimage to Mississippi.

Jun 19, 2023 / Jesse Hagopian

A banner depicting Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu shaking hands with India Prime Minister Narendra Modi, 2019.

The Settler-Colonialist Alliance of India and Israel The Settler-Colonialist Alliance of India and Israel

Over the decades, the two nations have become closer allies in business and politics. We talked to journalist Azad Essa about the origins of this international relationship.

Jun 19, 2023 / Books & the Arts / Deeksha Udupa

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