A new history of the Cuban missile crisis emphasizes how close the world came to destruction—and how severe a threat the weapons still pose.

Louis Menand’s new book traces the decline of a defining ideal.

Amid the waning of the humanities, Said turned out to be one of the last literary scholars with a public presence.

Why does “Klara and the Sun” serve up its big questions so explicitly?

This portrait of the privileged scion as a crack addict helps explain his father’s odd appeal.

Bacon’s contradictions make him the rare artist who warrants an infatuated 900-page biography.

On the role of criticism in the end times

Why did “A Brief History of Time” make its author the most famous scientist in the world?

The immense power of Jeff Bezos’s empire reveals a country that has been falling apart for quite some time.

Books by politicians sell badly and are quickly forgotten, yet the publishing industry spends shovelfuls of cash on them.

Heavy industry once drove Pittsburgh’s economy. Now health care does—but without the same hard-won benefits.

At the peak of her fame, she exuded total control on screen. According to her new memoir, a different story played out behind the scenes.

Jonathan Cohn’s new book shows how narrowly health care reform passed—and how far we are from universal coverage.

In her poems and “The Cancer Journals,” Lorde fought to name her experience.

Megan Nolan’s novel is a compulsive story of desire, subservience, and self-annihiliation.

How thought leaders resurrected the myth of a carefree prehistoric lifestyle

The novelist wanted his biography to settle scores. It has badly backfired.

Recent works inspired by his fiction struggle to reckon with his racist fantasies.

Soul City in North Carolina was designed to build Black wealth and address racial injustice. Then its opponents lined up.

The line between legal pharmaceuticals and illegal drugs has less to do with science than with race, class, and gender.