The Monthly Digest: August 2019

Looking Back

The Monthly Digest: August 2019
In July we published a number of reviews and essays that cast a backward glance at important — sometimes celebrated, sometimes unfairly neglected — cultural milestones of the 20th century. Below you will find profiles of the émigré creators of Curious George and the authors of Oreo and Crabcakes, rediscovered masterpieces of African-American literature; essays on the centenary of the founding of Bauhaus and the 50th anniversary of the release of Lindsay Anderson’s film if....; a reassessment of the historical thought of Reinhart Koselleck and the religious and political vision of Dietrich Bonhoeffer; as well as close reads of Dante’s Purgatorio and Varlam Shalamov’s hellish tales of life in the Gulag. — LARB Editorial