Culture

Portrait of the Awkward Artist

Achy Obejas

Culture

Save the Dramatic Chipmunk

Patricia Aufderheide

Culture

The Revolution Will Not Be Designed

As we look beyond housing solutions to urban poverty, good design is enjoying a second coming as the cure for what ails us

Alix Rule

Culture

Bad Cop, Badder Cop in Brazil

Does the new shoot-'em-up film Tropa de Elite bring out the country's inner fascist?

Holmes Wilson

Culture

Rocking Lolita in Tehran

Iran's underground music scene has more followers than ever, largely because Iranian musicians are performing on a new stage: the Internet

Colin Meyn

Culture

King of the Crop

Two years ago the federal government spent $9.4 billion to promote corn production, driving small farmers off their lands in Mexico, because they were unable to compete with U.S. imports

Ben Terrall

Culture

Youth Gone Wild

Jared Cohen's book Children of Jihad: A Young American's Travels among the Youth of the Middle East seeks to understand an area of the world where hatred for his country and religion run rampant

Brent White

Culture

R.I.P. LiP

Amidst the demise of Clamor, Punk Planet, Satya and LiP, Tipping the Sacred Cow: The Best of LiP reads like a super-special edition--complete with illustrations, a "theft ethics" quiz, a glossary of culture-jamming lingo and other useful appendices

Erin Polgreen

Culture

Prairie Style Romance

Though Nancy Horan takes great liberty in imagining intimate scenes between Frank Lloyd Wright and Mamah Borthwick Cheney--of which there is no evidence--Loving Frank ultimately rests on historical record

Achy Obejas

Culture

Suffering Secondary Trauma

Finding Iris Chang: Friendship, Ambition and the Loss of an Extraordinary Mind explores the complexity of Chang's psychology as it formed around the demands of her profession and her personal struggles stemming from her writing about The Rape of Nanking

Silja J.A. Talvi

Culture

Survival of the Adapted

The History of My Shoes and the Evolution of Darwin's Theory takes the theory of evolution--"survival of the fittest," a phrase that appeared only in a later printing of Charles Darwin's classic text--and, in alternating chapters, juxtaposes the relationship between Darwin and fellow biologist Alfred Russel Wallace with Fries' curiosity about his own adaptations to a world unprepared for his body and his means of motion

Achy Obejas

Culture

The Politics of Everyday

The political changes for which we've striven have made a material difference in the way women conceive of their lives, writes Katha Pollitt in Learning to Drive and Other Life Stories

Phoebe Connelly

Culture

Can Brazil’s Quilombos Survive?

Quilombo Country documentary reveals the modern-day challenges faced by Brazil's runaway slave communities

Anne Kogan

Culture

Chain Stores, Picket Fences and Tanks

American-style sprawl is adversely affecting the outposts of our global empire

Adam Doster

Culture

No Happy Endings

Escape from North Korea, the world's most repressive regime

Achy Obejas

Culture

Unveiling Muslim Feminism

Muslim women's bodies are too frequently used to symbolize the state of Islam in Iran, and the degree to which it associates itself with the West

Erin Wiegand

Culture

The Secret Lives of Plutocrats

In Richistan, Robert Frank offers a breezy, well-observed peek into this gated community. You too could visit if you graduate from "butler boot camp" and become a $120,000-a-year "household manager"

David Moberg

Culture

The Kids Aren’t Alright

Daniel Brook's The Trap reminds us that inequality is bad for everyone, rich and poor

Brian Cook

Culture

Giving Science the Finger

Generalizations based on hand shape not only are formulated from small pools of data, but smack of pseudo science.

Jody Kolodzey

Culture

Iraq: Mismanagement or Mass Murder?

No End in Sight explores how we got into Iraq and what screw-ups have made the situation spiral out of control

Michael Atkinson

Culture

Activism Illustrated

Inkworks Press celebrates a quarter century of political posters, the key to making a visual impact before the Internet's rise

Jen Angel

Culture

China Plays Hardball with Soft Power

Out with strongman Mao and in with svelte-suited diplomats and film personalities: Chinese leaders have learned the value of a warm smile and firm handshake

Jehangir Pocha

Culture

Forget the Foundations

The Revolution Will Not Be Funded shows how nonprofit fundraising hinders radical movements

Jeanine Plant

Culture

Iran and America’s Tug of War

Iran's real threat to the United States has less to do with nuclear ambitions and more to do with an explosive tension between politics and resources

Robert S. Eshelman