The Heartless World
/'Everyone knows who won the war,’ runs the refrain of Muriel Rukeyser’s Savage Coast; her newly published 1930 novel about the Spanish Civil War shows what it meant to be a witness to it.
Read MoreFrom the Archives: Summer Reading 2012 Continues
/Our feature continues, as more Open Letters folk share their annual Summer Reading recommendations!
Read MoreKeeping Up With The Tudors: Peace, Plenty, Love, Truth, Terror
/A debut novel of alternate history spins out one of the most tantalizing hypotheticals of the past: what if Anne Boleyn had managed to give King Henry VIII a healthy male heir? Some of the answers - and some of the resulting mysteries - may surprise you.
Read MoreFailing Gracelessly
/The authors have invaluable sources in America's 'deep state' of surveillance and counter-terrorism, but how much secrecy does security justify? And what happened to moral accountability?
Read MoreAmerican Aristocracy: Gods of Copley Square - Magic 1
/A startling triptych illuminates the crossroads of social, racial, and sexual identity in the Copley Square of a century ago, as "The Gods of Copley Square" continues
Read MoreThe Earl of Gallipoli
/The typical image of Winston Churchill comes from the dark days of World War II: a fat, old, bald Prime Minister eloquently defying Hitler's Germany. But before there was a monument there was a man, as an engaging new biography brings to light.
Read MoreFrom the Archives: Embossed Coins
/Elie Wiesel once claimed “a novel about Treblinka is either not a novel or not about Treblinka.” How does Steve Sem-Sandberg grapple with representing the unrepresentable in his sweeping chronicle of the Łódź ghetto, The Emperor of Lies? A review from our archives.
Read MoreThe Geeks Shall Inherit
/We've long endowed campaign consultants with shamanistic powers, but now a new truth is beginning to emerge--the people behind the scenes who can do most to win elections are the data analysts and stat nerds.
Read MoreJudaize This
/The belief that Jews are the enemy of civilization is one of the West's most tenacious and systemic ideas. Professor David Nirenberg's new history offers a vast, seemingly inexhaustible record of a very old, very useful hatred.
Read MoreBack, Back, Down the Old Ways of Time: D. H. Lawrence in Italy
/Year after year, D. H.Lawrence found love, lust, and gainful employment in Italy - and through the strange alchemy of the place, he also found the inspirations for some of his most enduring works of art.
Read MoreAmerican Aristocracy: Gods of Copley Square – Centerpiece 6
/Lost to history, here re-discovered, Trinity Chancel --"a daring enterprise in its day, as original an expression and as unique as was the genius of the American people."
Read MoreEntred in a Spacious Court
/Ben Jonson said that the once wealthy and acclaimed Edmund Spenser died "for want of bread"; a new biography tries to disentangle myth from fact, and to make the case for the great poet's relevance today
Read MoreAmerican Aristocracy: Gods of Copley Square – Centerpiece 5
/A rumor of Narnia at Trinity Church prompts two questions. Can a building have a spiritual life? Can a work of art not? Phillips Brooks and the idea of ecstasy
Read MoreToo Much Signal
/Nate Silver is currently enjoying his status as that unlikeliest of people, the celebrity statistician. Does his bestseller The Signal and the Noise live up to its carefully calculated expectations?
Read MoreAmerican Aristocracy: Gods of Copley Square – Centerpiece 4
/"Truth is Catholic, but the search for it is Protestant," quoth W.H. Auden, and this month Phillips Brooks is at Lourdes, of all places, his liking for which can only be explained by his experiences at Benares.
Read MoreThe Evolutionary: Barack Obama’s First Term in the White House
/Four years ago, Barack Obama won the U.S. presidency on a platform of hope and change. This month, as he fights for re-election, Greg Waldmann takes a detailed look at the incumbent's first term.
Read MoreThe Power Season
/As Americans go to the polls this month to elect a president, some recent biographies examine the lives of five very different men who once held the office.
Read MoreAmerican Aristocracy: Gods of Copley Square – Centerpiece 3
/"Perhaps a little drunk might answer" was Phillips Brooks's idea of how to view Pre-Raphaelite art, several masterpieces of which he commissioned for Trinity Church. "Centerpiece" continues.
Read MoreRaging Bull
/In this tensely-charged election year, all eyes fix on the blogosphere – of 1787. Jeffrey Eaton signs us in to Library of America’s 2-volume Debate on the Constitution and fills the comments field.
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