Making History
History is not one thing, but two. It is the past, and it is the story we tell ourselves about the past. Hilary Mantel explains the distinction: “History is not the past–it is the method we’ve evolved of organizing our … Continued
Young Radicals of the 1910s
“This is a story about hope and what comes after hope, and despair and what comes after despair.” (xiii) This may sound over-wrought, and it is. Jeremy McCarter can say that is what his book, Young Radicals, is about, but … Continued
Randolph Bourne: Educational Reformer
“There has been no handle by which heterogeneous minds and wills could be taken hold of and directed.” — Randolph Bourne, ca 1915 [198] “Sometimes, the most brilliant and intelligent minds do not shine in standardized tests because they do … Continued
Randolph Bourne: Tribune of Youth
“That the inertia of the older people is wisdom, and not impotence, is a theory that you will never induce youth to believe for an instant. The stupidity and cruelties of their management of the world fill youth with an … Continued
On the Come Up
Of all the great opening lines of literature–“Call me Ismael,” “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…”–Angie Thomas’s in On the Come Up may well be the greatest: “I might have to kill somebody tonight.” … Continued
Debt: The First 5,000 Years
In his Afterword to Debt: The First 5,000 Years, David Graeber says he wanted to write “a big, sprawling, scholarly book” of the kind people didn’t write anymore. [393] From a background in anthropology and ethnology, Graeber felt he had … Continued
Always Look on the Dark Side of Life
Krista Tippet’s radio show “On Being” was a little too earnest for my tastes–or perhaps it was just her voice, or the connotation from its original title, “Speaking of Faith.” Still, I discovered by accident (on early Sunday morning grocery … Continued
The Fruits of Collaboration
The Dawn of Everything “began as a diversion from [the authors’] more ‘serious’ academic duties: an experiment, a game almost, in which an anthropologist and archaeologist tried to reconstruct the sort of grand dialogue about human history that was once … Continued
“Lincoln Highway” Heads in a Different Direction
I probably would have read anything that came out by Amor Towles. That his third book was titled The Lincoln Highway made it inescapable. I, who had read about Carl Fisher and the Lincoln Highway, Cy Avery and Route 66, … Continued
Speaking of Reflection and Choice
Alexander Hamilton asked if people are truly capable of governing themselves by reflection and choice or if they are, instead, doomed to be buffeted by the whims of accident and force. Jill Lepore made it the organizing question of her … Continued