Printed Word Matters
REJUVENATING COMMUNISM: YOUTH ORGANIZATIONS AND ELITE RENEWAL IN POST-MAO CHINA
This book is a study of ambitious young Chinese, their aspirations, and career choices. It was prompted by an initial puzzle: how does the Chinese party-state manage to attract recruits and maintain their commitment over time, when ideology does not structure recruitment anymore and a liberalized employment market provides alternative career options? These issues are central to our understanding of what contributes to the long-term resilience of non-democratic regimes and their ability to remain
THEY SHALL REAP THE WHIRLWIND: ON THE ONGOING ISRAEL-HAMAS WAR
<div>She spoke as to a child who could not understand. All the futility that lay ahead. Yet who she knew would go on to repeat. Repeat repeat the things men had to learn....</div>
LIFE, ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AND EVOLUTION
<div>Science, philosophy, and culture – are these separate magisteria, or can there be beneficial cross-fertilization? This question may be considered almost as old as civilization itself...</div>
VEILS OF DISTORTION: HOW THE NEWS MEDIA WARPS OUR MINDS
<div>Anyone who’s followed the news for decades has noticed without fail that coverage has tilted more and more towards stories about celebrities and all manner of trivial conflicts between members of the public. What was once the sole domain of what we call 'tabloid' news has spread to become a fixture of most mainstream news outfits....</div>
REFLECTIONS ON DEATH AND THE AFTER-DEATH
What happens after we die has always been a major source of religious speculation, and providing answers to this question has also been one of religion’s chief tasks. Many faiths use the fear of death and the lure of an afterlife as a sort of spiritual club to dun adherents into proper moral behavior and correct belief in this world, promising all sorts of things to the worthy righteous after death. Pragmatically speaking, this promotes a very positive outcome, but how does one verify the benefi
FOR THE POSTHUMOUS GARCÍA MÁRQUEZ NOVEL NOW ON ITS WAY: AN EXPECTATIONS RE-SET
<div>I am called back to the too little acknowledged problem of adult/minor sex in the works of Colombian author Gabriel García Márquez...</div>
WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO JOEL KUPPERMAN?
I’ll never forget that day in 1944 - it was extremely warm for November – people called it 'Indian Summer' – but I didn’t see any Indians. It was the day I saw Joel Kupperman at school. He was in a hallway carrying books - alone. We were walking toward each other - face to face. This was my chance to introduce myself, but I was too scared to speak to the most famous kid in America (at least since Shirley Temple - but she wasn’t very famous anymore). It was an exciting moment, but I froze...
THE WILD GODS OF BARBARA EHRENREICH AND WILLIAM JAMES
<div>Better known for her books on low-wage workers, such as Nickled and Dimed, Barbara Ehrenreich wrote her dissertation on cellular immunology, and had always considered herself a scientist, even as she began to write on social issues. Author of about twenty books, the one that breaks the pattern is among her last, Living with a Wild God, in which she writes about an encounter with god, an event for which she was unprepared...</div>
NINA BERBEROVA AND SIMONE DE BEAUVOIR
Nina Berberova was unhappy whenever her Italics Are Mine was called a memoir. She would insist that her book was an autobiography—and not merely insist but do everything in her power to cement this specific genre definition in the reader’s consciousness. The word “autobiography” is in the subtitle of Italics, and the first sentence of the first chapter also says that “this book is not reminiscences” and explains in detail wherein the difference lies between the two genres...
TWO THEOLOGICAL VIEWS OF POLITICAL ORDER
<div>Many books have been, are, and will be written on the subject of international relations. But not many, at least not today, would discuss international order and our perceptions of it from a political-theological point of view. One of the few titles that offers such a discussion is William Bain's The Political Theology of International Order...</div>
‘HOW STATES THINK’: THE RATIONALITY VS THE EMOTIONALITY OF FOREIGN POLICY
‘How States Think: The Rationality of Foreign Policy’, a new book by John J. Mearsheimer and Sebastian Rosato, is a well-written and insightful examination of a central question in international relations: are states actually rational actors? That is, does the empirical record show that they are routinely rational or routinely non-rational? The issue is crucial for both the study and practice of international politics and the authors make the case that “only if states are rational can scholars a
STONE CRABS AND KISHKEHS: THE HISTORY OF MIAMI BEACH
Miami Beach, Florida is one of the most well known resort cities in the world. However, during the 20th century this glitzy 'fun-in-the-sun' paradise was also a haven for elderly Jewish immigrants, many of whom had fled from Czarist Russia. It was also home for recent survivors of the Holocaust. They were easy to identify, always dressed in short sleeves, proud to display the numbers branded on their arm - but some wore long sleeves, even on the hottest days of summer, hiding a memory from hell.
WAR POEMS | Three Poeams by Lucas Carpenter
<div>We moved mostly during the day.
They moved at night.
So we set our ambushes at night,
and they during the day...</div>
WATERGATE IN THE COUNTRY | A Poem by Arjen Boswijk, Art by Uko Post
<div>Under threatening gray skies...</div>
FOUR POEMS FROM OVID’S CREEK
<div>What we cannot speak about we must indicate with sighs, shouts, grunts, tears, and shrieks...</div>
TO DEAL WITH INEQUALITY, IT MUST BE BETTER UNDERSTOOD
<div>Extreme inequality is the sometimes mentioned but not well seen elephant in the room. Mostly noted and then ignored, it continues its 45-year explosion, especially in the US and UK without pause or concerted opposition. How extreme is it?...</div>
EDITH STEIN AND THE STATE
<div>It was not as a student of philosophy that I learned about Edith Stein. The luminous books she wrote as a phenomenologist and a Christian metaphysician did not figure in any of my academic courses. Rather, on my way to work one morning, I chanced across her religious name, Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, on a bronze memorial plaque inside Our Lady of Victory Church in downtown Manhattan. Identified as a 'Gift of the Edith Stein Guild,' the plaque stated, 'Her Calvary was Auschwitz.'...</div>
HOW HUMOUR LAID THE WORLD BARE, FROM THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY TO THE PRESENT | Katharina Van Cauteren
<div>Homer’s gods can roar with laughter. Zeus, Hera, Poseidon and the rest of the cabal — grinning, giggling, splitting their sides. Anything man can do, the gods can do better. The Greek pantheon is a projection of the terrestrial on to the celestial. It’s only when God becomes man that he stops laughing. Jesus doesn’t do stand-up. There are no gags in the Bible, no guffaws or gales of laughter. The Christian faith is an awfully serious thing...</div>
WHAT DO WE OWE ANIMALS?
<div>For most of human history our conceit has ordained that animals exist for us, to do with them as we please. We employ them for sport, entertainment, experiments, and work; their lives are crushed by inhumane methods of slaughter, transport, battery farming, and more. Their legal status in most countries differs little from a chair or a table...</div>
The Most Popular Histories and Biographies of the Last 10 Years, According to Goodreads
Goodreads, with its more than 140 million members, can be a treasure trove of reader statistics. Recently, Goodreads editors decided to gather data on the most popular histories and biographies of the last 10 years.
They comprised the list by looking at reviews, ratings, and how many of the site’s members added books to their “Read” or “Want to Read” shelves. The resulting list is somewhat to be expected — with nonfiction heavyweights like Erik Larson and Walter Isaacson making appearances —