Recent

Progress Is Not Linear, as 'The House of the Pain of Others' Reminds Us with Devastating Effect

Julián Herbert's The House of the Pain of Others is a masterly study that sheds light on the role played by educated elites in fomenting genocide.

Books

Lanthimos' 'The Favourite' Plays with History and Our Emotional Impulsivity

Stylistically risqué, The Favourite relates to a certain type of subversive British cinema from filmmakers such as Peter Greenaway, although it is not an imitation.

Film

Amplify: Graphic Narratives of Feminist Resistance

The juxtaposition of the comics and their prose-only afterwards in Amplify are intriguing, but the result is a surprising undercurrent of mistrust in comics to represent history independently of traditional scholarly apparatus.

Books

Will a New Form of Socialism Rise? On Bhaskar Sunkara's 'The Socialist Manifesto'

Socialists need to do better in fighting against identity-based discrimination, as editor of Jacobin Bhaskar Sunkara notes in The Socialist Manifesto, but that struggle will only be effective if waged as part of a larger struggle against neoliberal capitalism.

Books

'Dead Precedents' Explores How Hip-Hop Created the Future

Roy Christopher's dense book-length essay, Dead Precedents, takes much of what is now axiomatic about hip-hop and reminds us how revolutionary its innovations and practices really were.

Books

'Which Side Are You On?: 20th Century American History in 100 Protest Songs' Doth Protest Too Little

Ironically, James Sullivan's liberalism is fundamental to what's wrong with Which Side Are You On?: 20th Century American History in 100 Protest Songs.

Books

Some of the Most Maligned Tools of Modern Democracy Are Viewed in a New Light in Saaf's Reissued 'A Significant Year'

Part diary, part travelogue, and part social science study, Abdallah Saaf's A Significant Year examines Morocco's 2007 elections with a perspective on all modern democracies.

Books

'In the Intense Now' and the Clash and Clangor of Conflict

João Moreira Salles's melancholic documentary, In the Intense Now (No Intenso Agora) stitches together amateur footage of the riots of 1968 to create a riveting rumination on the glee and disillusionment of idealism.

Film

'Dramatic Exchanges' Offers a Delightful Epistolary History of the National Theatre

Daniel Rosenthal's illuminating collection in Dramatic Exchanges brings together some of the letters, postcards, telegrams, and emails exchanged by actors, playwrights, directors and other creatives involved in the National Theatre's story.

Books

'The Manhattan Nobody Knows' Guides You Through the City at Eye-Opening Level

New York trekker William B. Helmreich's latest urban walking guide, The Manhattan Nobody Knows, can feel like a series of bite-sized Joseph Mitchell essays, and as such is great fun to read.

Books

'Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom' Is as Monumental as the Man It Chronicles

Noted historian David W. Blight offers readers the fullest portrait of Frederick Douglass yet in this "biography of a voice".

Books

Fernando Lamas Shows His 3-D Assets in Kino Lorber's 'Sangaree' and 'Jivaro'

If you care about 3-D history, or about Lamas, or about how far the '50s could push erotic buttons (or un-buttons) within family entertainment, you'll have a good time with 'Sangaree' and 'Jivaro'.

Film

Complicit Christianity vs. Courages Christianity: 'The Color of Compromise'

Jemar Tisby's historical overview of the American church's complicity in racism, The Color of Compromise, will help provoke dialogue, but we face significant challenges, still.

Justin Cober-Lake

Books

Learn from Your Female Elders: Read Feminism's Forgotten Fight

When progressives adopt an ahistorical critique of feminism, they risking aiding and abetting its subversion. Historian Kirsten Swinth offers a remedy with Feminism's Forgotten Fight.

Books

Is There Hope for Knowledge? On Robert Pasnau's 'After Certainty'

In After Certainty, Robert Pasnau constructs a history of knowledge and concludes that most theories of knowledge aren't up to par. But, he says, we can hope.

Books

Nora Krug's 'Belonging' Could Serve as a Model for Understanding Collective Responsibility

In graphic novel Belonging, Nora Krug takes a single idea – her family's involvement in the Second World War and Nazi Germany – and pursues it with relentless, forensic determination.

Books

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