AdvertisementAmerica’s response to the coronavirus pandemic has exposed a shocking lack of preparedness for public health emergencies. But it has also revealed what must be, for the aspiring strongman in the White House and his coterie, a more embarrassing fact: if America were to move in an authoritarian direction, it would be shedding international allies in order to enter into a competition with nationalistic authoritarian states that it probably can’t win.The strengths that the US has built over the seventy-five years since World War II lie elsewhere—and they are ones that the Trump...…AdvertisementAmerica’s response to the coronavirus pandemic has exposed a shocking lack of preparedness for public health emergencies. But it has also revealed what must be, for the aspiring strongman in the White House and his coterie, a more embarrassing fact: if America were to move in an authoritarian direction, it would be shedding international allies in order to enter into a competition with nationalistic authoritarian states that it probably can’t win.The strengths that the US has built over the seventy-five years since World War II lie elsewhere—and they are ones that the Trump...WW…

Welcome( | )Welcome( | )NYR DailyIs it possible to lose a foundation stone of one’s culture without even having identified it as such? This year will be my last year teaching at the university; I’ve decided to throw in the towel three years before retirement age. There are a number of reasons behind this decision, but one is definitely the changed situation in the classroom. Even at post-graduate level, it is getting more and more difficult to feel that one has the attention of students or that something really useful is happening during the lessons.Of course, teachers have been reporting a...…Welcome( | )Welcome( | )NYR DailyIs it possible to lose a foundation stone of one’s culture without even having identified it as such? This year will be my last year teaching at the university; I’ve decided to throw in the towel three years before retirement age. There are a number of reasons behind this decision, but one is definitely the changed situation in the classroom. Even at post-graduate level, it is getting more and more difficult to feel that one has the attention of students or that something really useful is happening during the lessons.Of course, teachers have been reporting a...WW…

AdvertisementOne of the most difficult issues of the pandemic is when and how schools should reopen. Parents and teachers are eager for them to reopen, but only if the schools are safe and protected from the disease that is ravaging so much of the nation. Parents want their children back in school. They are tired of pretending to be teachers, organizing their children’s time every day. Teachers are eager to resume in-person instruction, but not at risk of their lives. Even students are eager to return to school, to see their friends, to engage in class discussions, to participate in school...…AdvertisementOne of the most difficult issues of the pandemic is when and how schools should reopen. Parents and teachers are eager for them to reopen, but only if the schools are safe and protected from the disease that is ravaging so much of the nation. Parents want their children back in school. They are tired of pretending to be teachers, organizing their children’s time every day. Teachers are eager to resume in-person instruction, but not at risk of their lives. Even students are eager to return to school, to see their friends, to engage in class discussions, to participate in school...WW…

AdvertisementSubmit a letter:Email usBooks discussed in this article:by Jill AbramsonSimon and Schuster, 544 pp., $30.00; $18.00 (paper)by David HalberstamUniversity of Illinois Press, 771 pp., $25.95 (paper)by Dan BernsteinUniversity of Nebraska Press, 256 pp., $29.95edited by Frederic B. Hill and Stephens BroeningRowman and Littlefield, 299 pp., $42.00; $24.00 (paper)by Dan KennedyForeEdge, 281 pp., $29.95by Michael SchudsonPolity, 213 pp., $69.95; $22.95 (paper)by Matthew PressmanHarvard University Press, 321 pp., $29.95by Alan RusbridgerFarrar, Straus and Giroux, 440 pp., $30.00; $20.00...…AdvertisementSubmit a letter:Email usBooks discussed in this article:by Jill AbramsonSimon and Schuster, 544 pp., $30.00; $18.00 (paper)by David HalberstamUniversity of Illinois Press, 771 pp., $25.95 (paper)by Dan BernsteinUniversity of Nebraska Press, 256 pp., $29.95edited by Frederic B. Hill and Stephens BroeningRowman and Littlefield, 299 pp., $42.00; $24.00 (paper)by Dan KennedyForeEdge, 281 pp., $29.95by Michael SchudsonPolity, 213 pp., $69.95; $22.95 (paper)by Matthew PressmanHarvard University Press, 321 pp., $29.95by Alan RusbridgerFarrar, Straus and Giroux, 440 pp., $30.00; $20.00...WW…

AdvertisementSubmit a letter:Email us“Only when the tide goes out,” Warren Buffett observed, “do you discover who’s been swimming naked.” For our society, the Covid-19 pandemic represents an ebb tide of historic proportions, one that is laying bare vulnerabilities and inequities that in normal times have gone undiscovered. Nowhere is this more evident than in the American food system. A series of shocks has exposed weak links in our food chain that threaten to leave grocery shelves as patchy and unpredictable as those in the former Soviet bloc. The very system that made possible the bounty...…AdvertisementSubmit a letter:Email us“Only when the tide goes out,” Warren Buffett observed, “do you discover who’s been swimming naked.” For our society, the Covid-19 pandemic represents an ebb tide of historic proportions, one that is laying bare vulnerabilities and inequities that in normal times have gone undiscovered. Nowhere is this more evident than in the American food system. A series of shocks has exposed weak links in our food chain that threaten to leave grocery shelves as patchy and unpredictable as those in the former Soviet bloc. The very system that made possible the bounty...WW…

Welcome( | )Welcome( | )NYR DailyIn the beginning, long before ISIS or al-Qaeda, before the smiling suicide bombers and black flags and all the other lurid signposts we have come to associate with Islam, there were manuscripts. They emerged from the desert in the seventh and eighth centuries AD: yellowed animal-skin parchments inscribed with Arabic letters that proclaim a faith in one God. Some were written on the shoulder bones of camels, or stripped palm-branches. No one knows who wrote them. They may have come from many hands in disparate places. But at some point, a powerful story...…Welcome( | )Welcome( | )NYR DailyIn the beginning, long before ISIS or al-Qaeda, before the smiling suicide bombers and black flags and all the other lurid signposts we have come to associate with Islam, there were manuscripts. They emerged from the desert in the seventh and eighth centuries AD: yellowed animal-skin parchments inscribed with Arabic letters that proclaim a faith in one God. Some were written on the shoulder bones of camels, or stripped palm-branches. No one knows who wrote them. They may have come from many hands in disparate places. But at some point, a powerful story...WW…

Welcome( | )Welcome( | )NYR Daily“As time went on, it became clear that the sickness was a feature, that anyone who entered the building became a little sick themselves,” Olivia Nuzzi in March 2018 of the Donald J. Trump White House and those who serve it. For a century, those who have worked closely with authoritarian rulers have shown the symptoms of this malady: a compulsion to praise the head of state and a willingness to sacrifice one’s own ideals, principles, and dignity to remain in his good graces, at the center of power.In his relationship with Republican political elites, as in...…Welcome( | )Welcome( | )NYR Daily“As time went on, it became clear that the sickness was a feature, that anyone who entered the building became a little sick themselves,” Olivia Nuzzi in March 2018 of the Donald J. Trump White House and those who serve it. For a century, those who have worked closely with authoritarian rulers have shown the symptoms of this malady: a compulsion to praise the head of state and a willingness to sacrifice one’s own ideals, principles, and dignity to remain in his good graces, at the center of power.In his relationship with Republican political elites, as in...WW…

AdvertisementSubmit a letter:Email usReviewed:by Laurence RalphUniversity of Chicago Press, 242 pp., $75.00; $19.00 (paper)Chicago has a police torture problem. The exact size of this problem is not known and perhaps never will be. What is known for sure is that between 1972 and 1991 at least 125 black Chicagoans were tortured by police officers in the Area 2 precinct building on the city’s predominantly black South Side. Depending on the day and the officers involved, the victims were beaten, shackled to steaming hot radiators, electrocuted, and raped with sex toys. They were tortured into...…AdvertisementSubmit a letter:Email usReviewed:by Laurence RalphUniversity of Chicago Press, 242 pp., $75.00; $19.00 (paper)Chicago has a police torture problem. The exact size of this problem is not known and perhaps never will be. What is known for sure is that between 1972 and 1991 at least 125 black Chicagoans were tortured by police officers in the Area 2 precinct building on the city’s predominantly black South Side. Depending on the day and the officers involved, the victims were beaten, shackled to steaming hot radiators, electrocuted, and raped with sex toys. They were tortured into...WW…

AdvertisementSubmit a letter:Email usReviewed:by Aaron GlantzCustom House, 398 pp., $27.99“They control the people through the people’s own money.”—Louis BrandeisIn an alternate reality, the one progressives wanted, the government wouldn’t have bailed out the banks during the 2008 crash. When mortgage-backed securities began catching flame like newspaper under logs, the government would have prioritized struggling homeowners instead. It would have created a corporation to buy back the distressed mortgages and then worked to refinance those mortgages—lowering monthly payments to reflect the...…AdvertisementSubmit a letter:Email usReviewed:by Aaron GlantzCustom House, 398 pp., $27.99“They control the people through the people’s own money.”—Louis BrandeisIn an alternate reality, the one progressives wanted, the government wouldn’t have bailed out the banks during the 2008 crash. When mortgage-backed securities began catching flame like newspaper under logs, the government would have prioritized struggling homeowners instead. It would have created a corporation to buy back the distressed mortgages and then worked to refinance those mortgages—lowering monthly payments to reflect the...WW…

AdvertisementSubmit a letter:Email usReviewed:edited by Michael D. Gordin and G. John IkenberryPrinceton University Press, 431 pp., $99.95; $32.95 (paper)by Fred KaplanSimon and Schuster, 372 pp., $30.00by William J. Perry and Tom Z. CollinaBenBella, 268 pp., $27.95by Jeffrey LewisMariner, 294 pp., $15.99 (paper)Seventy-five years ago, at 8:16 on the clear morning of August 6, the world changed forever. A blast equivalent to more than 12,000 tons of TNT, unimaginably larger than that of any previous weapon, blew apart the Japanese city of Hiroshima, igniting a massive firestorm. Within...…AdvertisementSubmit a letter:Email usReviewed:edited by Michael D. Gordin and G. John IkenberryPrinceton University Press, 431 pp., $99.95; $32.95 (paper)by Fred KaplanSimon and Schuster, 372 pp., $30.00by William J. Perry and Tom Z. CollinaBenBella, 268 pp., $27.95by Jeffrey LewisMariner, 294 pp., $15.99 (paper)Seventy-five years ago, at 8:16 on the clear morning of August 6, the world changed forever. A blast equivalent to more than 12,000 tons of TNT, unimaginably larger than that of any previous weapon, blew apart the Japanese city of Hiroshima, igniting a massive firestorm. Within...WW…