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James Baldwin

The Brilliance in James Baldwin’s Letters

The famous author, who would have been 100 years old today, was best known for his novels and essays. But correspondence was where his light shone brightest.
William McKinley

Trump Is Right About McKinley

“The most underrated president” was a model of successful governance in a world in flux.
Doodles, flourishes and scribbles drawn by George Washington.

Doodle Nation: Notes on Distracted Drawing

Humans have doodled for as long as they have written and drawn, but psychoanalysis began to imagine the doodle as a key to understanding the unconscious mind.
A collage of photographs of the cast and crew of "The Real World" over the show's logo.

How “The Real World” Created Modern Reality TV

The rules governing everything from “Big Brother” to “The Real Housewives” started three decades ago, with a radical experiment on MTV.
Ross Perot laughing, surrounded by reporters.

Donald Trump Didn’t Spark Our Current Political Chaos. The ’90s Did.

In ‘When the Clock Broke,’ John Ganz revisits the era of Pat Buchanan and Ross Perot to find the roots of our populist moment.
Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert giving two thumbs up.

When the Movies Mattered

Siskel and Ebert and the heyday of popular movie criticism.
A painting of Elizabeth Clare Prophet.

The Prophet Who Failed

After the apocalypse that wasn’t.
A house and people from the American frontier.

The Wild Blood Dynasty

What a little-known family reveals about the nation’s untamed spirit.
Keith Haring standing shirtless in front of one of his paintings.

Angels with Dirty Faces

How Keith Haring got his halo.
Larry David.

The End of “Curb Your Enthusiasm” Marks the End of an Era

Larry David is the last of his kind—and in several ways.
Donald Trump.

Why We Can’t Stop Arguing About Whether Trump Is a Fascist

In a new book, “Did it Happen Here?,” scholars debate what the F-word conceals and what it reveals.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Glad to the Brink of Fear

A new biography reveals how Ralph Waldo Emerson gave Americans a vocabulary to understand themselves in an era even more tempestuous than our own.
Elon Musk's face edited onto Apple advertisements.

A Bullshit Genius

On Walter Isaacson’s biographical project.
Lou Reed playing the guitar in front of an amp

The Brilliant Discontents of Lou Reed

A new biography examines the enigma of the musician.
Leonard Bernstein smoking a cigarette

The Bernstein Enigma

In narrowly focusing on Leonard Bernstein’s tortured personal life, "Maestro" fails to explore his tortured artistic life.
Martin Luther King Jr. giving a speech.
partner

The Problem With Comparing Today's Activists to MLK

Media coverage of the civil rights movement is a reminder that the deification of King has skewed public memory.
Virginia Kraft holding a hunting rifle, sitting on a dead elephant.

Sports Illustrated's Forgotten Pioneer

In the Mad Men era of magazine journalism, Virginia Kraft was a globe-trotting writer and a deadly shot with a rifle. Why hasn't anyone heard of her?
Milton Friedman.

Milton Friedman, the Prizefighter

The economist’s lifelong pugilism wasn’t in spite of his success—it may have been the key to it.
Sunrise over the Appalachian Mountains

Thicker Than Water: A Brief History of Family Violence in Appalachian Kentucky

Knowing I come from people who lived hard lives and endured terrible things is difficult. Knowing that I come from someone who ruined lives haunts me.
A photograph of four people on donkeys from the late 1800s.

A Question of Legacy

Some of my ancestors had money, and some held awful beliefs. I set out to investigate what I once stood to inherit.
Elon Musk.

How Corporate America’s Obsession With Creativity Wrecked the World and Brought Us Elon Musk

Samuel W. Franklin’s latest book explains how we sold ourselves out to a fake virtue.
Martha Graham and Merce Cunningham performing in Letter to the World.

Thunder in Her Head

A look into the life, art, and "wildness" of influential choreographer Martha Graham.
Sly Stone with daughter Nove, ca. 1980.

On the Sly

A memoir of the Family Stone.

Henry Kissinger, Who Shaped World Affairs Under Two Presidents, Dies at 100

He was the only person ever to be national security adviser and secretary of state at the same time. He was also the target of relentless critics.
Lou Reed in front of a photography setup.

The Canonization of Lou Reed

In a new biography, the Velvet Underground front man embodies a New York that exists only in memory.
Lou Reed, January 1, 1970.

Lou Reed Didn't Want to Be King

Will Hermes's new biography, "Lou Reed: The King of New York," tries—and fails—to pin the rocker down.
Madame Restell

‘Hag of Misery’

The abortionist Madame Restell is central to the story of how American women’s reproductive freedom was dismantled in the second half of the nineteenth century.
Lou Reed with sunglasses on. A glare reflects off of the sunglasses.

The Least-Known Rock God

A new biography of the Velvet Underground founder, Lou Reed, considers the stark duality of the man and his music.
Women at National Organization for Women demonstration

Betty Friedan and the Movement That Outgrew Her

Friedan was indispensable to second-wave feminism. And yet she was difficult to like.
Theodore Roosevelt and Henry Cabot Lodge.

“One of the Greatest in US History”: The Friendship Between Theodore Roosevelt and Henry Cabot Lodge

The relationship between two true believers in American exceptionalism.

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