Politics
AMERICA IS IN DECLINE: SIGNS, CAUSES, AND IMPLICATIONS FOR GLOBAL POLITICS
History
Notes From Italy: Looking Back at Mussolini
June 4, 2026Mussolini was not the only dictator of his time. In his Europe, in a time of...
Non-Fiction Reviews
Terrors on Terra
June 4, 2026How grotesque it must have sounded to a child, and how frightening. Outdoors, the sun of...
History
Notes From Italy: Cimitero Acattolico
June 4, 2026In 1738 came the first burial by the Pyramid that we know of, that of a...
Non-Fiction Reviews
Jeffrey J. Kripal, Author of Esalen
June 4, 2026"By human potentialities, Huxley and Esalen meant to refer to all those aspects of the human...
Biography
Is There a Doctor in the House?
June 3, 2026She smoked a lot, but she laughed a lot too. I could easily support her, I...
Non-Fiction Reviews
Out of Thin Air: Dinosaurs, Birds, and Earth’s Ancient Atmosphere by Peter Douglas Ward
June 3, 2026In an age when ad agencies regularly apply “revolutionary” to new car models and digital toys,...
Non-Fiction Reviews
History of Madness by Michel Foucault
June 3, 2026By the 1700s the “correctional” metaphor prevails and most of them are placed in moral and...
Non-Fiction Reviews
Notes From Italy: Dawn in the Suburra
June 3, 2026In early June, the best time in Rome is dawn. A little after first light the...
Fiction Reviews
Who Didn’t Do It?
June 2, 2026The “golden age” of detective fiction, which began roughly with Christie’s The Mysterious Affair at Styles,...
Fiction Reviews
Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult
June 2, 2026The relationship between Peter and his parents is given more space, but this could also have...
Fiction Reviews
So Many Ways To Begin by Jon McGregor
June 2, 2026David and Eleanor’s story is an unremarkable one. But their ordinary disappointments and frustrations are precisely...
Non-Fiction Reviews
Red Carpets and Other Banana Skins by Rupert Everett
June 2, 2026The universe appears to have cheated Rupert Everett. By rights, he belongs to the Edwardian age,...
Fiction Reviews
The Fighter by Craig Davidson
June 1, 2026James Ellroy, Cormac McCarthy and William T. Vollmann have some new company hanging out on their...
Non-Fiction Reviews
Notes From Italy: Sunday With the CAI
June 1, 2026This is not Labrador. We are fifty miles northeast of Rome and a mile above sea...
Non-Fiction Reviews
The Yorkists by Anne Crawford
June 1, 2026To be sure, the fifteenth century was one of the most politically unstable periods in English...
Non-Fiction Reviews
Look Homeward America by Bill Kauffman
June 1, 2026He is not much impressed with modernity, rejecting with certitude McDonald’s transfatty fries, the inter-state highway...
Non-Fiction Reviews
Friendship is the First Step to Peace: A Review of Picture Books that Highlight Our Getting Along
June 1, 2026Sometimes, feeling different is the root of feeling lonely. Ezra Jack Keats’ whimsical Regards To The...
Great Britain
The Perfect Summer by Juliet Nicolson
May 31, 2026...essentially, the book remains a story of British upper classes and the author has seemingly trawled...
Politics
A Talk With Cullen Murphy, Author of Are We Rome?
May 31, 2026"That said, the thinking that lay behind the invasion of Iraq—the notion that we could transform...
Fiction Reviews
After Dark by Haruki Murakami
May 30, 2026This relationship — Mari, plain and studious; Eri, "gorgeous" and shallow — is our first intimation...
Movies & TV
100 Greatest Gangster Films: The Godfather, #1
December 20, 2025The Godfather made careers, most notably those of Francis Ford Coppola and Al Pacino, despite the...
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Movies
Happy Birthday, NC-17!
September 1, 2026The basics of the MPAA’s rating system (from here). Oh, NC-17. You’re like that friend who’s...
Movies
Why Clash of the Titans might be “The Worst Movie Ever Made”
September 4, 2026Is Clash of the Titans one of the worst movies ever made? William Bibbiani makes an...
Movies
The Great Music Videos #2: “Thriller” (dir. John Landis)
August 31, 2026Jackson as a zombie in “Thriller” William Bibbiani noted in the Great Music Videos #1 post...
Art
How to Get Your Work in the Louvre? Hang it up Yourself!
September 9, 2026Ironically, while Mr. Guérineau has indicated a desire to infuse France’s museums with fresh blood and...
Art
Running Fence: Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s Masterpiece Revisited at the Smithsonian American Art Museum
September 7, 2026While one might be tempted to attribute the project's failure to grandiose ambition, the success of...
Art
Iran’s Cultural Heritage Under Threat
August 31, 2026In addition to depriving Iranians of their cultural property, a decision to turn over the artifacts...
Art
The Life and Work of Eadweard Muybridge
September 13, 2026Muybridge had married his young assistant, in 1871. After a while, he began to suspect that...
Movies
Movie Review: The Lovely Bones
August 16, 2026The novel opens with a striking, abrupt proclamation: “My name is Salmon, like the fish; first...
Television
The Big Easy: Great movies and TV set in New Orleans
September 7, 2026Music is the heart and soul of New Orleans: Wendell Pierce in a publicity shot for...
Non-Fiction Reviews
Book Review: Cleopatra: A Biography by Duane W. Roller
September 12, 2026Pity Duane W. Roller, author of Cleopatra: A Biography. I can just imagine the initial conversation...
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