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July 19, 2019
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Book Reviews

Red rock formations in the desert are interspersed with cacti and brush

Bonanza of Greed

Myths and lies will, if we let them, spell the end of the public domain

by Verlyn Klinkenborg | Monday, June 03, 2019

This Land: How Cowboys, Capitalism, and Corruption Are Ruining the American West · by Christopher Ketcham

Two women stand side-by-side in front of a stand of trees. The woman on the left is dressed in a light-colored coat., while the one on the right wears black.

Southern Secrets 

Three very different women haunted by the past

by Nancy Isenberg | Monday, June 03, 2019

Sisters and Rebels: A Struggle for the Soul of America · by Jacquelyn Dowd Hall

A man in a suit with a red tie and sunglasses stands next to two soldiers in U.S. uniform. They are filmed by a third man.

The Difficult Diplomat

A highly flawed man who brought peace and controversy

by Charles Trueheart | Monday, June 03, 2019

Our Man: Richard Holbrooke and the End of the American Century · by George Packer

Two women console one another one the footsteps of a church.

What Makes Us Better

Two books explore whether morality is innate or learned

by Sissela Bok | Monday, June 03, 2019

Conscience by Patricia S. Churchland · The War For Kindness by Jamil Zaki

An illuminated tunnel strewn with construction equipment

Plumbing the Depths 

A writer explores the world beneath our feet

by Thomas Laqueur | Monday, June 03, 2019

Underland: A Deep Time Journey · by Robert Macfarlane

Myths of Memory

Myths of Memory 

Our ability to recall is not an undiluted gift

by Henry Allen | Monday, June 03, 2019

A Primer for Forgetting: Getting Past the Past · by Lewis Hyde

A Blueprint for a Safer, Saner Society

A Blueprint for a Safer, Saner Society

How to reduce crime and warehousing in America’s prisons

by Lincoln Caplan | Thursday, April 18, 2019
Shrinking Success

Shrinking Success

Psychopharmacology has not lived up to its early promise

by Scott Stossel | Monday, March 04, 2019

Mind Fixers: Psychiatry’s Troubled Search for the Biology of Mental Illness · by Anne Harrington

Continental Drift

Continental Drift

Westward expansion delayed a needed national reckoning

by Jill Leovy | Monday, March 04, 2019

The End of The Myth: From the Frontier to the Border Wall in the Mind of America · by Greg Grandin

The Writer at Ground Zero

The Writer at Ground Zero 

The chronicler of the first horror of the nuclear age

by Phyllis Rose | Monday, March 04, 2019

Mr. Straight Arrow: The Career of John Hersey, Author of <em>Hiroshima</em> · by Jeremy Treglown

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THIS WEEK’S ARCHIVE PICK

2nd Look

The NASA You Never Hear About

by Isabelle Taft

Fifty years ago this week, when Neil Armstrong became the first person to set foot on the moon, the moment represented years of work and technical accomplishment. But it also left NASA struggling with a daunting new challenge: figuring out what to do next. Over the years, it has answered this question in part by highlighting the dizzying array of inventions it has inspired—some 1,500 a year. “Besides rocket science itself, perhaps the biggest thing people fail to understand about the agency is how its work has reverberated throughout the world in ways we experience directly every day,” writes Isabelle Taft. “It’s a mark of the agency’s enduring influence that even if we never make it there, we’re already living in a society forged by outer space.”