Culture

How Today’s White Middle Class Was Made Possible By Welfare

Whites, angered at blacks and immigrants receiving "government handouts," forget they were lifted out of poverty through racially exclusive welfare programs in the 30s.

Margaret Garb

George Saunders’ New Novel Follows Abraham Lincoln’s Son to a Buddhist Afterlife

In his first full-length novel, the short story virtuoso weaves U.S. history with the otherworldly.

Chris Lehmann

Don’t Be Fooled By the Trump Spat—The CIA Is Not Your Friend

A new book reminds us that the CIA is one of history's great purveyors of fake news.

Branko Marcetic

Meet the Folkestones

A small British town that voted for Brexit.

Jane Miller

Asghar Farhadi Is One of the Most Important Directors Working Today—And Trump Has Banned Him

The Iranian filmmaker's masterful, Oscar-nominated The Salesman shows the futility of progressives trying to tolerantly endure repressive regimes.

Michael Atkinson

Neoliberalism, Cranked up to 11

Jonathan Coe's Number 11 offers a bleak portrait of what Britain has become.

Chris Lehmann

Reflections on Barack Obama: A Great and Disappointing President

Hope, change and the limits of the office.

Salim Muwakkil

What We Can Learn From the Pacifist Movement Against World War I

Although they failed to keep us out of the war, they organized effectively in conditions frighteningly similar to our own.

Theo Anderson

We Hunted Down the 10 Best Films of 2016

From the Iranian mystery Fireworks Wednesday to the German black comedy Toni Erdmann, this year's stand-out films were far off the beaten path.

Michael Atkinson

The High Priest of the Church of Trump

How Stephen Bannon is using evangelical narratives to spread the gospel of Trumpism.

Theo Anderson

The First Hippies

The new book Rebel Crossings showcases a small band of feminist utopians who came to America to try something new.

Jane Miller

CNN’s New Book Is a Master Class in How Not to Cover an Election

The news network's instant retrospective on the Trump-Clinton race is as vacuous as their initial coverage was.

Chris Lehmann

This Christmas, Go See a German Comedy About Consulting. No, Really.

Filmmaker Maren Ade's Toni Erdmann takes a wise and whimsical look at the struggles women face in the corporate world.

Michael Atkinson

The Android Manifesto: Finding Marx in Westworld

The HBO drama is a surprisingly astute tale of alienated labor and false consciousness.

Eileen Jones

Dissident-Poet on the Lam: A New Film Captures Pablo Neruda’s Year as a Fugitive

Pablo Larrain's Neruda follows the love-poet-cum-Communist-dissident in a cat-and-mouse chase with the Chilean government.

Michael Atkinson

The Problem With Cancer Memoirs

Popular accounts ignore the underlying race and class dynamics that determine vulnerability to the disease.

Margaret Garb

Sci-Fi Iraq: Authors Envision Their Country in 2103, a Century After the U.S. Invasion

In a new collection, Iraqi writers explore their nation's future, and ridicule their former occupiers.

M. Lynx Qualey

Brexit, Trump and What We’ve Failed To Learn From the 1930s

Perhaps dark undercurrents rest beneath every society, waiting for a depression or a demagogue to unleash them.

Jane Miller