Long Read
A collection of 226 posts
Embryo Selection: A Guide for the Curious
A look at the process, history, and ethics of a potentially revolutionary new technology.
Too Much Gilbert
The author of ‘Eat Pray Love’ has returned with a new memoir, which features all the usual problems with her writing writ large.
MAGA’s Weak Gods
Rusty Reno and the American postliberal revolt against the postwar consensus.
The Jewel in the Crown
‘The Man Who Would Be King’ turns fifty.
Power and Its Malcontents
Shadi Hamid has an uneasy conscience, and he doesn’t yet know what to do with it.
The Feminist, the Filmmaker, and the Führer
Susan Sontag’s 1974 essay about Leni Riefenstahl and fascist aesthetics displayed the critic at her most stiflingly moralistic and aristocratic.
Ballad of a Song and Dance Man
An unorthodox new book by one of America’s finest nonfiction authors tries to make sense of Bob Dylan.
The Genocide Libel
A new report from the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies separates verifiable facts from politically motivated fiction in Gaza.
Seasons in the Sun
Sex, money, murder, and the decline of Mike White’s wildly popular HBO series ‘The White Lotus.’
The Liberal-International Order Will Survive
...but it will need to be reimagined in the post-Trump era.
The Post-Kirk Clampdown
The current frenzy of right-wing cancel culture recalls the progressive lunacy that followed the murder of George Floyd. But the current iteration is more dangerous because it is backed by state power.
The Multipolarity Mirage
What realists like Emma Ashford deride as America’s “reactionary defence of the status quo” is in fact a prudent effort to preserve a world order of unparalleled value.
Russiagate Redux
The real hoax is the one being peddled by the Trump administration right now.
American Power in an Embattled World Order
If the stewards of American power wish to act effectively and preserve the liberal order in this dangerous new era, they will have to act with the self-confidence of the just man armed.
A Heterodox Education
The Constance Holden Memorial Address, 2025.