Culture

Culture

The Frustrating Yet Beautiful Drama of “A Ghost Story”

Filmmaker David Lowery's latest is slow, but contains a few genuine spiritual ideas.

Michael Atkinson

Culture

Squatters’ 60-Year War Against Private Property

How propertied classes team up with the state to forcibly evict urban squatters.

Margaret Garb

Culture

The Fairy Tales Capitalists Tell Themselves

The new book The Wisdom of Money amounts to morale-boosting capitalist agitprop.

Chris Lehmann

Culture

Beta Testing Fascism: How Online Culture Wars Created the Alt-Right

Angela Nagle's "Kill All Normies" charts the ideology's emergence from the internet's darkest corners.

John Michael Colón

Culture

Okja: The Veggie-Prop Children’s Film You Really Need to See

The director of Snowpiercer is back with a kiddie film that meets vegetarian propaganda, with surprising success.

Michael Atkinson

Culture

Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay: Examining Britain’s Populist Revolt

David Goodhart's The Road to Somewhere goes nowhere worth following.

Jane Miller

Culture

The Return of Nunsploitation

Jeff Baena’s The Little Hours is a clever update on Boccaccio's The Decameron.

Michael Atkinson

Culture

How the Threat of Apocalypse Justifies American Empire

A new book argues that in the military's hands, warnings of world's end become self-fulfilling prophecies.

Chris Lehmann

Culture

When the Bankers Took Manhattan: Austerity’s New York Roots

The new book Fear City documents the slide of New York City from vibrant social democracy to neoliberal abyss.

Moe Tkacik

Culture

The Milquetoast Militants of Showtime’s “Guerrilla”

The protagonists' middle-class naiveté rolls off them in waves.

Eileen Jones

Culture

How To Resist, in 6 Books

Your guide to the guides to the resistance.

Kate Aronoff

Culture

The Scrooges in Charge

From refugees to healthcare, Theresa May's policies are paranoid and mean-spirited.

Jane Miller

Culture

Hulu’s Brilliant Adaptation of “The Handmaid’s Tale” Says More About Our Present Than Our Future

For many marginalized women, dystopia is already here.

Jessica Stites

Culture

The Elusive Emily Dickinson

A new film explores the poet's restless mind and lonely life.

Michael Atkinson

Culture

Our New Philanthropic Overlords

Why the donor class loves charter schools—and themselves.

Chris Lehmann

Culture

To Form a More Corporate Union

The Land of Enterprise: A Business History of the United States shows that Trump's greed is no aberration.

Chris Lehmann

Culture

Toward a Real-Life Zootopia

How a fuller conception of freedom can help humans and others coexist.

Dayton Martindale

Culture

View of the Swamp from Across the Pond

As the U.K. barrels toward Brexit, Trump provides Britain with another bizarre spectacle.

Jane Miller

Culture

The Best Police Money Can Buy

In the Fox series APB, police misconduct doesn't exist, and privatization and technology can fix any problem.

Kristian Williams

Culture

Girl, You’ll Be a Cannibal Soon

A new French horror film explores identity, coming of age and the various temptations of the flesh.

Michael Atkinson

Culture

Brexit From the Side of a Volcano

Contemplating capitalism and democracy in the Canary Islands.

Jane Miller

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

Culture

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

Culture

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