Kingdom Come
A new book about Stephen King’s early novels will only appeal to hardcore fans, but its very existence is a reminder of its subject’s incalculable cultural impact.
Kevin Mims
· 26 min read
Books
A collection of 271 posts
A Man for All Seasons
Susan Owens’s handsome new monograph reconsiders the life and career of the English landscape painter John Constable.
Graham Daseler
· 9 min read
The Ballad of East and West
In a fascinating new book, historian Anthony Bale vividly reconstructs the brutal, fantastical, and sometimes deeply religious experiences of medieval travellers across Europe, the Middle East, and Asia.
Benny Morris
· 13 min read
China Is Ready for the Next War. America Is Not.
What radar and jet propulsion were to World War Two, robotics and artificial intelligence will be to the next war between great powers.
Brian Stewart
· 6 min read
What Straight Women Want
A new book by Phoebe Maltz Bovy argues that most accounts of female heterosexuality minimise and even theorise away its central feature: women’s sexual desire for men.
Iona Italia
· 14 min read
Radical Lessons in Solidarity and Resistance
The son of Bernardine Dohrn and Bill Ayers has written a perceptive, fascinating, and rather sad book about his lonely life as the child of violent revolutionaries.
Ron Capshaw
· 11 min read
The Roots of Recession
As an energy shock looms, a new book reframes recession as the product of historical circumstance, not cyclical inevitability.
Joel Kotkin
· 11 min read
Statecraft and Seduction
In an excellent new biography of Rasputin, British military historian Antony Beevor argues that perception can be a more powerful shaper of world events than reality.
Ron Capshaw
· 9 min read
Apocalypse Soon?
Earth Day once helped focus public attention on real environmental problems. Today it is a festival of alarmism, misanthropy, technophobia, and moral theatrics.
Henry I. Miller
· 8 min read
Infinite Ingenuity: Andy Weir’s Optimistic Vision in ‘Project Hail Mary’
The new film 'Project Hail Mary' based on Andy Weir's bestselling novel, celebrates scientific problem-solving on a cosmic scale. There are striking parallels with David Deutsch's radical optimism.
Iona Italia
· 14 min read
Apocalypse ’92
A new account of the 1992 siege at Ruby Ridge attempts to straighten out the record and place the story in a broader political and theological context.
Ron Capshaw
· 9 min read
Love and Theft
Luc Besson’s romantic adaptation of the Dracula story owes an unacknowledged debt to Eiko Ishioka, the visionary designer of Francis Cord Coppola’s 1992 classic.
Yuki Zeman
· 11 min read
The Many Faces of Tucker Carlson
Jason Zengerle’s new book about the degradation of a once-gifted writer and broadcaster also illustrates the downward trajectory of the entire news industry during the same period.
Graham Daseler
· 14 min read
Hearts of Darkness
Laura K. Field’s smart new book takes a critical look at MAGA’s Ivy League intellectuals.
George Case
· 8 min read
Shakespeare in Love and Grief
It appears that people now find comfort in the idea that the life of even the greatest of writers is no more satisfying than their own.
Mallory Young
· 10 min read