The New York Review of Books

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A new history of the American Revolution “mines the speeches, laws, private writings, and newspaper articles of the Revo...
08/13/2025

A new history of the American Revolution “mines the speeches, laws, private writings, and newspaper articles of the Revolutionary era to discover the actual motivations, North and South, for joining the battle against Britain.” —David S. Reynolds

Historians have long grappled with “the American Paradox” of American Revolutionary leaders who fought for their own liberty while denying it to enslaved Black people.

“Even when the costs and causes of Ukraine’s fight are hotly debated, there is no question about who or what the army is...
08/13/2025

“Even when the costs and causes of Ukraine’s fight are hotly debated, there is no question about who or what the army is fighting for. I don’t think the same could be said of the US military right now.” —an interview with Linda Kinstler

“When you watch a military parade, you have to wonder when and where the lethal arms will be deployed, in whose name and for what cause.”

“Literature will always have its [glamorous] outlaws, but it is…the outlaw as an ordinary, unglamorous figure briefly il...
08/13/2025

“Literature will always have its [glamorous] outlaws, but it is…the outlaw as an ordinary, unglamorous figure briefly illuminated by the glare of power that speaks most acutely and poetically to our country’s current systems of control.” —Rachel Kushner

“One doesn't marry in order to write about women nor have children to write about children nor teach in a prison to write about prisoners,” John Cheever

“No one proved more adept at giving visual form to [a patriotic myth of Venice] than Veronese,” writes Ingrid D. Rowland...
08/13/2025

“No one proved more adept at giving visual form to [a patriotic myth of Venice] than Veronese,” writes Ingrid D. Rowland. “[His paintings] provided nervous Venetians with a focus for their prayers.”

The majesty, serenity, and opulence of Paolo Veronese's paintings bolstered the myth of Venice's vibrancy at a time of social, political, and religious decline.

Fintan O’Toole on Trump’s Epstein problem
08/12/2025

Fintan O’Toole on Trump’s Epstein problem

On July 26 Donald Trump played a round of golf at his own Turnberry course in Scotland. Over footage of the event from Sky News, we hear a reporter

“I had never thought of [Springfield, Illinois] as a former coal-mining center,” Jori Lewis writes. Exploring its mining...
08/12/2025

“I had never thought of [Springfield, Illinois] as a former coal-mining center,” Jori Lewis writes. Exploring its mining history reveals “a place where Indigenous and Black experiences of oppression and agency once flowed together.”

When I was knee-high to a grasshopper, we lived in a house in the country--on a rural road on the outskirts of Springfield, Illinois, where the water was

“Romanians are Janus-headed, one face looking in the direction of Europe, or the West in general, and the other elsewher...
08/12/2025

“Romanians are Janus-headed, one face looking in the direction of Europe, or the West in general, and the other elsewhere: to the broader Balkan region…or a mythical land, unlike and above any other, which they are fortunate to inhabit.” —Costică Brădăţan

Romania's divided loyalties between East and West help explain how a nerdy Sorbonne-educated mathematician was elected president.

Martin Filler on the glossed over history of Condé Nast and the rise of Trump
08/11/2025

Martin Filler on the glossed over history of Condé Nast and the rise of Trump

One of the most anticipated books this summer in style-conscious circles has been Empire of the Elite: Inside Condé Nast, the Media Dynasty That Reshaped

“When you watch a military parade, you have to wonder when and where the lethal arms will be deployed, in whose name and...
08/11/2025

“When you watch a military parade, you have to wonder when and where the lethal arms will be deployed, in whose name and for what cause.” —an interview with Linda Kinstler

“When you watch a military parade, you have to wonder when and where the lethal arms will be deployed, in whose name and for what cause.”

Charles Nicholl on a recently resurfaced letter from “Mrs. Shakspaire”
08/11/2025

Charles Nicholl on a recently resurfaced letter from “Mrs. Shakspaire”

On a summer's day in 1978, Frederick Charles Morgan was at work as usual in the ancient library of Hereford Cathedral. He was a hundred years old but

Lora Kelley on the gluttonous, glorious heyday of dining on trains, planes, and ocean liners
08/11/2025

Lora Kelley on the gluttonous, glorious heyday of dining on trains, planes, and ocean liners

In the summer of 1957 a young woman named Shirley Kubik got a job attending to passengers on Trans World Airlines. After the company determined that she

Most exercise fads “didn’t require you to pay the slightest attention to what you were doing,” Alma Guillermoprieto writ...
08/11/2025

Most exercise fads “didn’t require you to pay the slightest attention to what you were doing,” Alma Guillermoprieto writes. “Joseph Pilates offered both a radical innovation—the machines—and his uncanny, intuitive understanding of muscles and how they work.”

With his strange machines and an uncanny, intuitive understanding of muscles, Joseph Pilates created a new technique for improving strength and movement.

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