Our Founding Contradiction

The entrenched dichotomy at the center of the national story

American Inheritance: Liberty and Slavery in the Birth of a Nation, 1765–1795 by Edward J. Larson

Head of the State

How the FBI’s founding director ruled from the shadows

G-Man: J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century by Beverly Gage

Structural Foundations

The buildings that defined the Western world

The Story of Architecture by Witold Rybczynski

Quark of Habit

Scientists keep pushing for larger particle colliders—but is this really wise?

The Matter of Everything: How Curiosity, Physics, and Improbable Experiments Changed the World by Suzie Sheehy

Beauty Born of Ashes

The story of a lyrical masterpiece that almost wasn’t

The Waste Land: A Biography of a Poem by Matthew Hollis

The Naked Flame

Winter 2023

Five Poems

Three Stories

“The Sadness of Clothes” by Emily Fragos

Poems read aloud, beautifully

“The Vow” by Yuliya Musakovska

Poems read aloud, beautifully

Lindsey Weber

Relationships that define us

“Muse Circe Reclaims Her Lucre”

Five new prompts

In the Endless Arctic Light

A journey to the far north of Norway means confronting our changing climate

The Bears

“Faustina, or, Rock Roses” by Elizabeth Bishop

Poems read aloud, beautifully

Family/History

David Levering Lewis digs into his own origin story

In the Lions’ Studio

A new dual biography turns the lens on the towering architects of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

Louis B. Mayer and Irving Thalberg: The Whole Equationby Kenneth Turan

Such People

“My Mother on an Evening in Late Summer” by Mark Strand

Poems read aloud, beautifully

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