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William Neuman on Machado, Maduro, and Trump
01/15/2026

William Neuman on Machado, Maduro, and Trump

María Corina Machado, the Venezuelan opposition leader and recent recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, has been calling for a foreign--read: US-led--military

“The message of both influencer and politician,” writes Anne Enright, is “that the city is a huge crowd of individuals, ...
01/15/2026

“The message of both influencer and politician,” writes Anne Enright, is “that the city is a huge crowd of individuals, each of them entirely interesting for five seconds at a time.”

In early October Sinn Féin, one of the parties supporting Catherine Connolly's bid for the presidency of Ireland, posted a clip of her playing ball in the

“Since I left Iran in 2011,” writes Amir Ahmadi A***n, “a permanent anxiety” has taken hold “about the safety of loved o...
01/15/2026

“Since I left Iran in 2011,” writes Amir Ahmadi A***n, “a permanent anxiety” has taken hold “about the safety of loved ones who are hard to reach. Never is this feeling sharper than when the Iranian government shuts down the Internet.”

In July 1987 the Hajj ceremony in Mecca turned into a bloodbath. Shia pilgrims, mostly Iranians, staged a protest, chanting against America, Israel, and

“When Lenape Indians agreed in 1737 to cede an area of eastern Pennsylvania equivalent to the distance a man could walk ...
01/15/2026

“When Lenape Indians agreed in 1737 to cede an area of eastern Pennsylvania equivalent to the distance a man could walk in a day and a half, John Penn and Thomas Penn…arranged for three seasoned runners to do the ‘walking.’” —Nicholas Guyatt

How did the Mason–Dixon Line--meant to resolve a longstanding colonial border dispute--come to represent the US's foundational divide between slavery and freedom?

Walker Mimms on Tatiana Trouvé’s effervescent anti-monuments
01/14/2026

Walker Mimms on Tatiana Trouvé’s effervescent anti-monuments

The first time I saw a sculpture by Tatiana Trouvé, in an uncommonly dim gallery at a museum in Mougins, in southern France, I assumed that I had found

“What goes almost unmentioned” in Mahmood Mamdani’s history of Uganda is that its present leader “retains power by…infli...
01/14/2026

“What goes almost unmentioned” in Mahmood Mamdani’s history of Uganda is that its present leader “retains power by…inflict[ing] such terror that many Ugandans tell me they pine for Idi Amin.” —Helen Epstein

Idi Amin and Yoweri Museveni both confronted, in different brutal ways, the challenges of governing a postcolonial nation.

“In Chaudhuri’s books, people see the world around them and the world sees them back,” Edwin Frank writes.
01/14/2026

“In Chaudhuri’s books, people see the world around them and the world sees them back,” Edwin Frank writes.

The situation in which we find ourselves at the beginning of Amit Chaudhuri's A New World is familiar, from life and in fiction: He had come back in

Amir Ahmadi A***n on the blackout in Iran
01/13/2026

Amir Ahmadi A***n on the blackout in Iran

In July 1987 the Hajj ceremony in Mecca turned into a bloodbath. Shia pilgrims, mostly Iranians, staged a protest, chanting against America, Israel, and

In India, “it is no longer possible...to imagine a Muslim president, chief justice, or national cricket captain, positio...
01/13/2026

In India, “it is no longer possible...to imagine a Muslim president, chief justice, or national cricket captain, positions that it would have been unremarkable for a Muslim to hold for most of India’s independent existence.” —Christopher de Bellaigue

Narendra Modi is pursuing his vision of “developed India” through distorted claims of progress, stolen elections, and anti-Muslim policies.

So successful was Mamdani’s extraordinary campaign that “Democrats everywhere are suddenly taking up the call for ‘affor...
01/12/2026

So successful was Mamdani’s extraordinary campaign that “Democrats everywhere are suddenly taking up the call for ‘affordability,’” Nikil Saval writes.

The night Zohran Mamdani won the Democratic primary for mayor of New York, I was at a dinner gathering of fair housing and tenants' rights advocates in

“Mamdani’s light self-ironizing made him real,” writes Anne Enright. “This was video as self-expression.”
01/12/2026

“Mamdani’s light self-ironizing made him real,” writes Anne Enright. “This was video as self-expression.”

In early October Sinn Féin, one of the parties supporting Catherine Connolly's bid for the presidency of Ireland, posted a clip of her playing ball in the

Fitz-James O’Brien, “‘the Celtic Poe,’ as the Irish-born [writer] has been called,” introduced America to “the kind of j...
01/12/2026

Fitz-James O’Brien, “‘the Celtic Poe,’ as the Irish-born [writer] has been called,” introduced America to “the kind of jeu d’esprit long associated with Donald Barthelme.” —Michael Dirda

Little known today, Fitz-James O'Brien deserves serious attention for developing some of science fiction's most familiar tropes--among them microcosmic worlds, invisible monsters, time slips, and robots.

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