Gurnah’s haunting novels of war and oppression, which won him the Nobel Prize in literature last year, defy the dominant trends in American publishing.

Longtermists focus on ensuring humanity’s existence into the far future. But not without sacrifices in the present.

At its peak in the eighteenth century, Jena in Germany may have had a higher concentration of geniuses than Renaissance Florence or ancient Athens—and plenty of drama.

Americans may appear to be split along educational lines—but the dysfunction goes much deeper.

The GOP believed it could appeal to its extremist fringe, without succumbing to it.

The twentieth century promised prosperity and leisure for all. What went wrong?

A handful of companies control the web. It doesn’t have to be that way.

Steven Thrasher’s new book examines how society makes people vulnerable to viruses and blames them for it.

Sorokin’s novels do not “say” anything about Russia today.

Danger surrounded Freud in Nazi-occupied Austria. Why did it take him so long to see it?

Felix Frankfurter warned that politicians, not the courts, should make policy.

The United Kingdom has given a range of financial crimes a sheen of respectability.

On loving and loathing some of America’s most common public spaces

His vision of a tech-optimized future inspired a generation. But his true talent was for burnishing his own image.

“Sharp Stick” has all the hallmarks of a Dunham production. That’s the problem.

In the lives of women from Alice Neel to Ursula Le Guin, motherhood was entwined with a quest to make art.

With a genius for understatement and formal restraint, Gunn wrote some of the most powerful poetry of the AIDS crisis.

The current political order may have proven a failure. But neither party has presented an alternative yet.

In his journey from hippie sage to global business consultant, the Whole Earth Catalog founder embodied the shifting spirit of Silicon Valley.

What the team behind the brilliant Showtime docuseries learned about relationships from their film about Anthony Weiner.