The idea that liberal democracies shielded science from politics was always flawed.

The unlikely, energizing friendship of Hugh Kenner and Guy Davenport

Hugh Ryan’s book traces a largely forgotten history.

A new biography evokes the enchanted sprawl and smog of Los Angeles in the 1970s.

Briallen Hopper elevates the relationships American culture has overlooked and deflated.

James Lasdun’s "Afternoon of a Faun," about a rape allegation, bears an eerie relation to his memoir of a stalking.

In his writing on disordered eating and body image, Kiese Laymon grapples with a legacy of disenfranchisement.

Denis Diderot loved the things that made others uneasy: ambiguity, change, doubt, and the pleasures of the flesh.

A new book traces the struggle over democracy, rights, race, and gender in Puerto Rico.

A plan to eliminate animal farming relies on science and startups.

How the United States reinvented empire

The many varieties of misery in the dazzling short stories of Machado de Assis

Why is the former Starbucks CEO obsessed with the national debt? Because his father fell on hard times.

The renowned literary editor and writer, who has died at 101, lived a long and glorious life of the mind.

Her new novel features a surprisingly hopeful autopsy of a failed relationship.

Marci Vogel’s new novella, “Death and Other Holidays,” presents a meditation on grief, memory, and renewal.

A new book traces the history of an idea—and shows what American liberals have lost.

Her new book is a brilliant autopsy of print journalism. But she stumbles when she takes on the new digital wave.

He famously hailed the triumph of liberal democracy. Now he struggles to see a future for it.

What makes a protest powerful?