Utopia and Its Discontents
On the Charlie Hebdo murders, the future of Europe, the Ukraine, capitalism, and the West.
Politics
"You can't ignore politics, no matter how much you'd like to." — Molly Ivins
Between the Pen and the Protest
On Marie Gottschalk, race, poverty, and welfare in the United States.
Pathology of the Carceral State
Crime and Punishment: Is it too late to control the carceral state? Michael Meranze on Marie Gottschalk’s "commanding and disturbing" new book.
Avant Charlie: Flemming Rose and The Danish Cartoon Crisis
Flemming Rose’s "The Tyranny of Silence" is a subtly crafted and self-effacing investigation of the Danish Cartoon Crisis and the debates about free speech that surfaced in its wake.
The Trauma Hero: From Wilfred Owen to “Redeployment” and “American Sniper”
“Yet when the trauma hero myth is taken as representing the ultimate truth of more than a decade of global aggression, as in it does in American Sniper, we allow the psychological suffering endured by those we sent to kill for us displace and erase the innocents killed in our name. As in Klay’s story, the real victims of American political violence disappear under a load of shit.”
The Art of Critique: Victor Serge’s “Midnight in the Century”
“Personalism” combines the radical libertarian belief in the importance of the individual with the communist belief in the importance of the entire community. Victor Serge was its greatest champion.
Auden, Rabelais, and “Charlie Hebdo”
W. H. Auden’s “September 1, 1939” once again offers not just words of comfort, but clues on how to respond to the Charlie Hebdo attacks.
A Guide to Federal Surrealism: Fiction and the American Intelligence Community
As the CIA continues to grow and publish reports on its own activities, it has developed a style all its own. Federal Surrealism.
Forgive My Father, For He Has Sinned
On the poetic struggle of two familial, and familiar, figures of speech
White Christmas and Black December
The #BlackLivesMatter movement, and the deaths that spurred it, should make all of us who celebrate ask: What does Christmas mean this year? And what should it mean?
Schumpeter and Me
Tom Streithorst unravels the myths of modern economics.
Holy Terrors
"The weighty task of wrenching terrorism and martyrdom apart and policing the divide between them takes place on a daily basis in news commentary and water cooler conversation."
:quality(75)/https%3A%2F%2Fassets.lareviewofbooks.org%2Fuploads%2F201501american-sniper-poster.jpg)
:quality(75)/https%3A%2F%2Fassets.lareviewofbooks.org%2Fuploads%2F201501Auden.jpg)
:quality(75)/https%3A%2F%2Fassets.lareviewofbooks.org%2Fuploads%2F201501Report.jpg)
:quality(75)/https%3A%2F%2Fassets.lareviewofbooks.org%2Fuploads%2F201501SilverJews_EarlyTimes01.jpg)
:quality(75)/https%3A%2F%2Fassets.lareviewofbooks.org%2Fuploads%2F201412Black-December.jpg)
:quality(75)/https%3A%2F%2Fassets.lareviewofbooks.org%2Fuploads%2F201412tulip-bubble.png)