The Brahmin and His Imaginary Friend
How a classic paean to the honest virtues of a Maine fisherman obscured several ugly truths
By Janna Malamud Smith Friday, January 24, 2025
Divided Providence
Faith’s pivotal role in the outcome of the Civil War
By Robert Wilson Thursday, January 23, 2025
Righteous Strife: How Warring Religious Nationalists Forged Lincoln’s Union by Richard Carwardine
Island Royalty
A new biography of a Caribbean revolutionary
By Madison Smartt Bell Monday, January 13, 2025
The First and Last King of Haiti: The Rise and Fall of Henry Christophe by Marlene L. Daut
The Writer in the Family
The fiction of E. L. Doctorow gave a young man hope of connecting his father and his literary hero
By Jonathan Liebson Wednesday, January 8, 2025
The Weight of a Stone
Searching for stability in an erratic world led Oliver Sacks and other writers to the realms of geology
By Megan Craig Thursday, January 2, 2025
Verde
Learning a foreign language isn’t just about improving cognitive function—it can teach us to sense the world anew
By Jesse Lee Kercheval Thursday, December 12, 2024
Aging Out
Many of us do not go gentle into that good night
By Anne Matthews Thursday, December 5, 2024
Golden Years: How Americans Invented and Reinvented Old Age by James Chappel
Under a Spell Everlasting
Thomas Mann’s Magic Mountain, published a century ago, tells of a world unable to free itself from the cataclysm of war
By Samantha Rose Hill Monday, December 2, 2024
From Oppressed to Oppressors
The Battle of Algiers took a pitiless look at the war for Algerian independence, but the filmmakers could not foresee the failures that would result
By Wendy Smith Monday, September 1, 2008
Immortality Gained
John Milton was not only a great poet, but also a great defender of liberty
By Jay Parini Monday, September 1, 2008
Milton: Poet, Pamphleteer, and Patriot By Anna Beer
Copyright Wrongs
When technology makes an illegal act easy, should the law make that act legal?
By Paul K. Saint-Amour Monday, September 1, 2008
Remix: Making Art and Commerce Thrive in the Hybrid Economy By Lawrence Lessig
How Special a Relationship?
Whether T.R. needed Edward VII to establish the United States as a world power
By Joshua Hawley Monday, September 1, 2008
The King and the Cowboy: Theodore Roosevelt and Edward the Seventh, Secret Partners By David Fromkin
The Censor in the Mirror
It’s not only what the Chinese Propaganda Department does to artists, but what it makes artists do to their own work
By Ha Jin Monday, September 1, 2008
The Torture Colony
In a remote part of Chile, an evil German evangelist built a utopia whose members helped the Pinochet regime perform its foulest deeds