Essay Archives

Giving Up the Ghost

by Leslie Jamison,

The eternal allure of life after death

Stop Hillary!

by Doug Henwood,

Vote no to a Clinton dynasty

PBS Self-Destructs

by Eugenia Williamson,

And what it means for viewers like you

On Free Will

by Edward O. Wilson,

And how the brain is like a colony of ants

Francis and the Nuns

by Mary Gordon,

Is the new Vatican all talk?

The Civil Rights Act’s Unsung Victory

by Randall Kennedy,

And how it changed the South

Diagnose This

by Heidi Julavits,

How to be your own best doctor

Nothing Left

by Adolph Reed Jr.,

The long, slow surrender of American liberals

Wrong Answer

by Nicholson Baker,

The case against Algebra II

The Devil’s Bait

by Leslie Jamison,

Symptoms, signs, and the riddle of Morgellons

Poetry Slam

by Mark Edmundson,

Or, The decline of American verse

Blinded by the Right?

by T. M. Luhrmann,

How hippie Christians begat evangelical conservatives

Sentimental Medicine

by Eula Biss,

Why we still fear vaccines

Our Place in the Universe

by Alan Lightman,

Face to face with the infinite

Ignorance of Things Past

by Lewis H. Lapham,

Who wins and who loses when we forget American history

Abraham’s Children

by Bernard Avishai,

Toward a right of return for Palestinians

After 9/11

by David Rieff,

The limits of remembrance

Visible Man

by Peter Singer,

Ethics in a world without secrets

When Is a Movie Great?

by David Thomson,

The perils of medium and magic

Vote Machine

by Scott Horton,

How Republicans hacked the Justice Department

Schoolhouse Crock

by Peter Schrag,

Fifty years of blaming America’s educational system for our stupidity

Army of Altruists

by David Graeber,

On the alienated right to do good

Imagine There’s No Oil

by Bryant Urstadt,

Scenes from a liberal apocalypse

Stabbed in the Back!

by Kevin Baker,

The past and future of a right-wing myth

The Case for Impeachment

by Lewis H. Lapham,

Why we can no longer afford George W. Bush

“Don’t Watch the News”

by Frederick Busch,

A Marine’s family lives from phone call to phone call

The Uses of Disaster

by Rebecca Solnit,

Notes on bad weather and good government

Let There Be Markets

by Gordon Bigelow,

The evangelical roots of economics

Saving Israel from Itself