Mary Gaitskill Remains Open to Opposition Mary Gaitskill Remains Open to Opposition
The closest thing we get to a precept in Somebody with a Little Hammer is that we should all try to learn to think for ourselves—and, even then, things can go wrong.
Jun 19, 2017 / Larissa Pham
Al Franken Is Not Running for President Al Franken Is Not Running for President
But his new book is the antidote to Trumpism.
Jun 5, 2017 / Editorial / Joan Walsh
The Quiet Discontent of Sarah Manguso The Quiet Discontent of Sarah Manguso
The essayist and poet has made an art out of concision. But what do her essays leave out?
Jun 1, 2017 / Books & the Arts / Charlotte Shane
How the CIA Tricked the World’s Best Writers How the CIA Tricked the World’s Best Writers
Joel Whitney talks about his book Finks, which exposes the agency’s corruption of American culture during the Cold War.
May 31, 2017 / Patrick Lawrence
Factory or Forest, Modernity and Climate Change Factory or Forest, Modernity and Climate Change
In India, the pathology of denial about global warming reveals the real crisis at our door—one of imagination.
May 19, 2017 / Abhrajyoti Chakraborty
George Saunders’s Lincoln George Saunders’s Lincoln
The novel ‘Lincoln in the Bardo’ examines the Civil War as the root of America’s violent past—and as a possible source of empathy that might release us from it.
May 3, 2017 / Books & the Arts / Jon Baskin
The Fight Over Sexual Freedom The Fight Over Sexual Freedom
Geoffrey Stone’s book is a powerful reminder that the history of sexual equality is one of backlash as well as progress.
May 3, 2017 / Books & the Arts / Anna North
The Corporatization of the Web Has Thinned Out Our Culture and Undermined American Democracy The Corporatization of the Web Has Thinned Out Our Culture and Undermined American Democracy
In his new book Move Fast and Break Things, Jonathan Taplin argues that, among its many downsides, the digital revolution has diminished our very humanity.
Apr 27, 2017 / David Dayen
Marxism With Soul Marxism With Soul
Marshall Berman was committed not only to the radical promise of socialism and modernism, but to those masterpieces and revolutions that seemed to erupt out of our everyday lives.
Apr 26, 2017 / David Marcus
Can the Pain of Others Be Transmuted Into Art? Can the Pain of Others Be Transmuted Into Art?
While Dana Schutz’s Open Casket has received the lion’s share of attention, much of the Whitney Biennial seems to seek out controversy.
Apr 25, 2017 / Barry Schwabsky