One might think that the patent anthropocentrism of the concept of “Anthropocene” would suffice to invite a clear opposition, and, yet ...
Essays
Corporate Responsibility in the Climate Crisis
In France, a recent legislative bill identified the task of bringing about “corporate transformation” as one of the major challenges of the 21st century ...
The Bingewatch: Lesbian Drama
The reboot is being rebooted. From our flat-screens, laptops, and oversized smartphones, freshly concepted versions of old and not-so-old TV shows beckon ...
B-Sides: Satomi Myodo’s “Journey in Search of the Way”
As spiritual autobiographies go, Journey in Search of the Way is a bit of a romp ...
Islamic Alternatives to Global Finance
Across the Muslim world today ambitious experiments are underway to create an Islamic alternative to conventional finance. These initiatives are inspired by the ...
The Righteous Anger of Dasa Drndic
September was starting to look like a big month for miscreants making a comeback. Louis C. K. made a surprise appearance at the Comedy Cellar. Steve Bannon was ...
Whither Agriculture?: The “Green Revolution” @50
Staid hotels, would-be insurrectionaries should note, make unpromising ...
Back to the Women’s Land
How do women gain power in a society economically and politically dominated by men? This question vexed mid-20th-century second-wave feminists. At issue was whether women should occupy male spaces or ...
The End?
The apocalypse—for all the questions of when and where and why and how surrounding it—will actually be a rather straightforward affair. At some point in time, after a particularly grueling winter ...
The Political Ascendancy of Creditworthiness
The widespread resurgence of authoritarian nationalism in recent years has been met by the left with fear and loathing—but also a bit of envy. For it is ...
What Essays Are, and What Essayists Do
There are no good books about essays, only essays. The first practitioner of the form, the 16th-century French politician and minor aristocrat Michel de ...
A City Plans for War
What if war was waged not with bombs but with blueprints? Urban planning’s promise of an improved city of the future is especially bright in postconflict cities, where planning is expected to bring ...
Public Thinker: David Blight on Frederick Douglass, Abolition, and Memory
Puzzling out the meaning of the Civil War and its aftermath has been David Blight’s lifelong work ...
Our Drugs, Ourselves
Is the term “drugs” still meaningful? Many of us would confess to being at least mildly dependent on some substance, be it single-origin coffee or Sancerre, antidepressants or anti-inflammatories ...
Michelle Obama’s Embrace
I told Michelle Obama that I admired Becoming for its courage, honesty, risk taking, and optimism. But my admiration went further, because in her story I had seen myself, and not just in the book’s main character ...
Knausgaard’s Ruthless Freedom
So here it is at last: the end of Knausgaard’s struggle. It is 1,160 pages long, divided into three parts. Part 2 consists of a long essay on Hitler. Both ...
The Great Global Grad School Novel
Was Sharmila Sen “happy” on the first morning she woke up in the United States to the strange smell of bacon frying? That’s what her young son wants to ...
Our Mothers, Ourselves
I intended to begin with a personal admission. “I didn’t like being pregnant,” I was going to write, before describing the bodily discomforts (hypersalivation!) and psychic stresses (due date during ...
Turning History Inside Out
It’s not hard to imagine the Hollywood pitch meeting for an adaptation of Esi Edugyan’s new novel, Washington Black. “It’s 12 Years a Slave meets Jules Verne ...
Who Is Sick and Who Is Well?
I might be tempted to describe Terese Mailhot’s new memoir, Heart Berries, as “raw,” had she not warned against it. “The danger politically or artistically is that ...