Category Archives: Essays

LOS ANGELES REVIEW OF BOOKS – SUMMER 2025

LOS ANGELES REVIEW OF BOOKS (June 19, 2025): The latest issue of LARB features ‘Submission’ – all new essays, interviews, short fiction, poetry, and art reexamining the complex conditions of power (or a lack thereof).

Emmeline Clein finds pockets of faith in feminist writer Shulamith Firestone’s ostensibly airless spaces;

Jack Lubin examines the relationship between rap and supervised release;

Charley Burlock interrogates the myths surrounding wildfires, grief, and California’s supposed “gasoline trees”;

Cory Bradshaw describes the art and agony involved in making amateur porn;

Nathan Crompton and Andrew Witt discuss the documentary form and photographing Los Angeles

Become a member for all of that and more—including essays and features by Alexander Chee, Elizabeth Rush, and Tal Rosenberg; interviews with Samual Rutter and Abdulrazak Gurnah;

Plus, an excerpt from Yvan Algabé’s Misery of Love; fiction by Erin Taylor, Devin Thomas O’Shea, and A. Cerisse Cohen

Poetry by Farnoosh Fathi, Paula Bohince, John James, Caitlyn Klum, Sawako Nakayasu, and Harryette Mullen;

And art by Carla Williams and Talia Chetrit.

Harper’s Magazine ——- July 2025 Preview

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HARPER’S MAGAZINE (June 18, 2025): The July issue includes Andrew Kay’s report on how OCD came to haunt American life, Lewis Hyde’s essay on deep time and climate change, Pete McKenzie’s investigation into how a band of island nations in the South Pacific became Israel’s staunchest defenders, Alex Reisner’s annotation of the system prompt for Elon Musk’s AI Grok, Lydia Davis’s essay on the art of observation, Charlie Lee’s review of Harry Crews’s oeuvre, fiction from C. Mallon, and more.

Shadow of a Doubt

How OCD came to haunt American life by Andrew Kay

Lost Tribes of the South Pacific

How a band of island nations became Israel’s staunchest defenders by Pete McKenzie

The Geological Sublime

Butterflies, deep time, and climate change by Lewis Hyde

THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE – JULY 2025 PREVIEW

THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE (June 17, 2025): The latest issue features ‘Witness’ – Elizabeth Bruenig’s “Witness,” on Sin and Redemption in America’s Death Chambers

Inside America’s Death Chambers

What years of witnessing executions taught me about sin, mercy, and the possibility of redemption by Elizabeth Bruenig

Inside the Exclusive, Obsessive, Surprisingly Litigious World of Luxury Fitness

How Tracy Anderson built an exercise empire by Xochitl Gonzalez

The Talented Mr. Vance

J. D. Vance could have brought the country’s conflicting strands together. Instead, he took a divisive path to the peak of power. by George Packer

THE NEW ATLANTIS — SUMMER 2025 ISSUE

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THE NEW ATLANTIS MAGAZINE (June 16, 2025): The latest issue features ‘The Lonely Neighborhood’…

How the Government Built the American Dream House

U.S. housing policy claims to promote homeownership. Instead, it encourages high prices, sprawl, and NIMBYism.

Does Marriage Have a Future?

From the Industrial Revolution to the pill to AI girlfriends, technology is unbundling what used to be marriage’s package deal.

Look at what technologists do, not what they say

A new alliance between tech and the family?

The Atlantic Magazine – June 2025 Preview

THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE (April 28, 2025): The latest issue features “I Run The Country and The World” – Donald Trump explains his victory and his plan…

1. “I run the country and the world”

Asked how his second term so far differed from his first, Trump said: “The first time, I had two things to do — run the country and survive; I had all these crooked guys.”

  • “And the second time, I run the country and the world,” he added.
  • “I’m having a lot of fun, considering what I do … You know, what I do is such serious stuff.”

2. A third term “would be a big shattering”

Of a potential 2028 run, Trump told the magazine it “would be a big shattering.”

  • He continued, “Well, maybe I’m just trying to shatter.” But Trump added, “It’s not something that I’m looking to do. And I think it would be a very hard thing to do.”
  • That follows his comments from last month, when said he is “not joking” about a third term,

Reality check: Trump launching a bid for a third term wouldn’t just shatter norms — it would violate the 22nd amendment.

  • Meanwhile, the Trump Organization has started selling “Trump 2028” hats.

3. The billionaire class’ “higher level of respect”

The billionaire class has largely bowed to Trump in his second term. He described the mega-rich taking a friendlier posture as “just a higher level of respect.”

  • “I don’t know … Maybe they didn’t know me at the beginning, and they know me now,” he continued.

Harper’s Magazine ——– May 2025 Preview

Home | Harper's Magazine

Harper’s Magazine (April 16, 2025): The latest issue features ‘War In The West Bank” – What choice for the Palestinians….

After Nonviolence

The end of peaceful resistance in Palestine by Ben Ehrenreich

Radioactive Man

On (maybe) unraveling a government cover-up by Maddy Crowell

The Secret of Who She Was

How my mother learned to be invisible by Geoff Dyer

Culture: Harper’s Magazine – April 2025

HARPER’S MAGAZINE (March 19, 2025): The latest issue features ‘The Social-Skills Crisis’ – Have we forgotten how to work together?; Undercover with New York’s Guardian Angels and The End of Psychoanalysis As We Know It?…

Going Soft – Future-proofing the American worker

by Lily Scherlis

The Last Detail – On patrol with the Guardian Angels

by Kent Russell

The Social Turn – Psychoanalysis at an inflection point

by Maggie Doherty

Commentary Magazine – April 2025 Preview

April 2025 – Commentary Magazine

COMMENTARY MAGAZINE (March 14, 2025): The latest issue features ‘In Praise Of Big Pharma’; How American Aid has subsidized Terror and The Coalition of the Sentimental & Homicidal for Palestine…

In Praise of Big Pharma

 “If we allow the hatred of the industry to continue, we are going to lose investment and people are going to die.” by Tevi Troy

The Putin Trap

Washington Commentary by Matthew Continetti

The Evil of Rationalism

Social Commentary by Christine Rosen

Modern Age Journal – Winter/Spring 2025

MODERN AGE – A CONSERVATIVE REVIEW (March 12, 2025): The latest issue features ‘The Art of Civilization’; No Canon, No West; Kitsch- An Essay in Definition; Flannery O’Connor’s Century…

Canons Win Culture Wars

Daniel McCarthy

Civilization is a product of canons. The Bible is a canon, and while the Iliad and Odyssey were not quite sacred scripture to the ancient Greeks, the Homeric epics went a long way toward establishing what it meant for a man or a city to be part of the Greek world. That world was almost a synonym for civilization itself. What was not Greek was barbarian.

Noam Chomsky’s War on War

David Gordon

Noam Chomsky has attained fame in two different areas. He is a world-renowned authority in linguistics and also a major public intellectual. But while in the former area his achievements are universally recognized, even by those who disagree with him, this is not so for his work as a public intellectual, where he is idolized by some, respected by others, tolerated by yet others, and execrated by more than a few.

Flannery at 100—and Forever

O’Connor’s work, fiction and not, is Catholic, gothic, Southern, and timeless.

Chilton Williamson, Jr.

The Hedgehog Review – Spring 2025 Preview

After Neoliberalism?

THE HEDGEHOG REVIEW (February 28, 2025): The latest issue features ‘After Neoliberalism?’ – The old order may be dying, but the shape of a new one is still unclear.

Thematic Essays

Just Another Liberalism?Blake Smith

Captives of DesireJames E. Block

There Are AlternativesDavid Ciepley

Putting (Some Kind of) Families First – Deborah Dinner

Whose Nationalism?John M. Owen IV

The Sum of Our WisdomMarilynne Robinson


Essays

Are We Really Living in a Materialist Age?Kit Wilson

Are You in Charge of Your Health?Sarah M. Brownsberger

Redeeming JealousyMarilyn Simon