Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People, writes Fintan O’Toole (Fintan O'Toole), “is a classic that is not sacrosanct. It is weighty enough to be canonical but flawed enough to be treated with healthy disrespect. It is infinitely malleable.” go.nybooks.com/4bmdFJJ

Quinn Slobodian (zeithistoriker) on the UK’s global empire of tax havens and money laundering go.nybooks.com/3UKxwgg

Christopher Byrd (Christopher Byrd) on Leon Forrest’s thousand-page epic, Divine Days go.nybooks.com/3wawKzT

“If Constance Debré’s novels are anchored by a rapport with emptiness as both the cost and conduit of freedom, her prose matches that attitude in its tone, which has the mournful reverberation of a stone dropped down a well.” —Anahid Nersessian go.nybooks.com/49OWH5z

“Armed non-state actors have been an on-and-off feature of Haiti’s political landscape” for decades, Pooja Bhatia writes. “But the groups that emerged during Moïse’s term were of another order.” go.nybooks.com/3JDYW13

Gabriel Winslow-Yost on Jane Schoenbrun’s I Saw the TV Glow go.nybooks.com/4bnso7d

“It could be said that Beyoncé is a better singer, Shakira a better dancer, Taylor Swift a better lyricist, or Britney Spears a better confessional autobiographer, but Madonna is mother.” —Joanna Biggs go.nybooks.com/4a6esh9

Martin Filler on supertall skyscraper oversaturation go.nybooks.com/3y6erwk

“The relentlessly wholesome story that Jill Biden tells about herself, and possibly to herself, doesn’t quite add up.” —pamela druckerman on the first lady’s memoir go.nybooks.com/4bhjXel

“How do I capture what happened—and what moved me—during a performance that most of my readers will never have a chance to see?” —Erica Getto, interviewed by Daniel Drake go.nybooks.com/4a3zFrV

Mike Jay (Mike Jay) on the shifting science and cultural meanings around MDMA go.nybooks.com/3JNT4Cx

“Given the zeal with which humans...have found other ways to suck vast amounts of petroleum out of the earth, a handful of nukes detonated in the Canadian muskeg would have been just a drop in the barrel of oil’s ‘harmful effects.’” —John Washington go.nybooks.com/4dbfmLZ

'It could be said that Beyoncé is a better singer, Shakira a better dancer, Taylor Swift a better lyricist, or Britney Spears a better confessional autobiographer, but Madonna is mother.' - Joanna Biggs
‘Give Me Joy’ nybooks.com/articles/2024/… via The New York Review of Books

“The way Martha Graham placed the female body and mind at the center of her dances, recognizing her sexual desires as an integral part of her artistic persona—decades before the sexual revolution—was one of her most striking innovations.” —Marina Harss go.nybooks.com/3Qlqjkl

“Modi’s willingness to help Netanyahu should not be surprising. In recent years his Hindu chauvinist administration has emerged as a conspicuously loyal friend of Israel, reversing decades of policy in support of the Palestinian cause.”

'In fact, incomplete sovereignty could be its own kind of savior for the former colonizers. Empire had entailed a diversity of protectorates, crown colonies, and free ports. Postcolonial capitalism looked similar.'

Very happy to see my review of two authors I've learned so much from Kojo Koram and Oliver Bullough appear in the pages of The New York Review of Books nybooks.com/articles/2024/…

“For the first time in American history,” writes Sean Wilentz, “the supreme judicial authority was parsing how much criminality to permit the chief executive.” go.nybooks.com/3y9ZqcC

Mike Jay (Mike Jay) on the shifting science and cultural meanings around MDMA go.nybooks.com/3JNT4Cx

“To insist upon a static, unchanging reading of legal texts...to the exclusion of purpose, practice, consequences, and workability will fail to account for the variety and complexity of the human experience.” —Stephen Breyer go.nybooks.com/44tbLok