Books and Culture Archives - Page 15 of 21

Pulp Nonfiction

Paul Buhle ▪ March 18, 2016

“Zippy” creator Bill Griffith’s new book Invisible Ink is a curious masterpiece, merging the real-life personal saga of his mother with the story of the forgotten pulps.

Back to the Future

Siddhartha Deb ▪ Winter 2016

Pulsating with racial and national anxieties, cyberpunk icon William Gibson’s future America is not so different from the one we know.

Choosing War

Roy Scranton ▪ Winter 2016

By reframing war in terms of “moral injury,” philosopher Nancy Sherman dodges the question of who is responsible for its horrors in the first place.

Booked: The War on Booze

Timothy Shenk ▪ February 11, 2016

An interview with historian Lisa McGirr about her new book The War On Alcohol, and why Prohibition was more important than most people think.

If Bernie Sanders’s presidential run is to herald a new socialist movement, American leftists will have to overcome the combination of sectarianism, repression, and cooptation that doomed their predecessors.

A Book as Big as Life

Laura Tanenbaum ▪ Winter 2016

City on Fire—Garth Risk Hallberg’s massive and elaborately constructed novel about New York in the 1970s—offers the contours of the great social novel. But it struggles to reveal the ways in which power actually works.

David Bowie Was Our Mirror

Sarah Jaffe ▪ January 11, 2016

David Bowie’s lyrics were hard to mine for political content, but his songs will continue to suit moments they were never written for.

Phantom Public

Astra Taylor ▪ Winter 2016

Have we lost the deeply democratic vision that animated the early internet?

Gutting Public Unions

William P. Jones ▪ January 2, 2016

Attacks on public-sector unions are setbacks not just for organized labor but for anyone who believes the state should ensure access to basic social needs.

Booked: A Global History of Time

Timothy Shenk ▪ December 17, 2015

An interview with historian Vanessa Ogle about her new book The Global Transformation of Time.

Booked: A Suitcase Full of Passports

Timothy Shenk ▪ November 19, 2015

An interview with journalist Atossa Araxia Abrahamian about her new book, The Cosmopolites, and the buying and selling of citizenship.

A Mind of One’s Own

Jennifer Ratner-Rosenhagen ▪ Fall 2015

The American marketplace of “wisdom” is booming again. A long tradition of feminist thought reveals how flawed it is—and what true wisdom might look like instead.