Culture

Meet the Folkestones

A small British town that voted for Brexit.

Jane Miller

Culture

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

Culture

Neoliberalism, Cranked up to 11

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

Chris Lehmann

Culture

Reflections on Barack Obama: A Great and Disappointing President

Hope, change and the limits of the office.

Salim Muwakkil

Culture

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

Culture

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

Culture

The High Priest of the Church of Trump

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

Theo Anderson

Culture

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

Culture

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

Culture

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

Culture

The Android Manifesto: Finding Marx in Westworld

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

Eileen Jones

Culture

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

Culture

The Problem With Cancer Memoirs

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

Margaret Garb

Culture

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

Culture

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

Culture

Thomas Friedman’s Latest Book Is a Tour Through His Troubled, Neoliberal Mind

We read 500 pages of corporate platitudes and ungainly metaphor so you don't have to.

Chris Lehmann

Culture

The Hairdresser of Plaistow

The happy, often glamorous life of the man who cuts my hair.

Jane Miller

Culture

A Brief History of the Right’s Racist Hate: From 1885 to Trump

The road to Trumpism is paved with scapegoats.

Theo Anderson

Culture

From Collection to Community: The Transformation of Detroit’s Iconic, 30-Year Public Art Project

The Heidelberg Project is being partly dismantled, but hopes to live on as an artistic community.

Leyland DeVito

Culture

Inside the Tax-Avoidance Racket of “Wealth Management”

A sociologist's new book reveals how the ultra-rich starve public coffers and undermine democracy.

Chris Lehmann

Culture

The Stories We Live By: Why the White Working Class Votes Conservative

In Strangers in Their Own Land, sociologist Arlie Russell Hochschild travels south to study what gives conservative ideology its power.

Theo Anderson

Culture

Big Data Isn’t Just Watching You—It’s Making You Poorer

Cathy O’Neil's new book, Weapons of Math Destruction, shows mathematical models aren't free of ideology.

Pankaj Mehta

Culture

Walking While Black

Encounters with police in New York City.

Garnette Cadogan

Culture

In Ixcanul, Guatemala’s First-Ever Oscar Entry, Feminism Erupts in a Small Mayan Community

Filmed entirely in Kaqchikel, Jayro Bustamante’s new movie explores a clash between reproductive rights and tradition.

Michael Atkinson