He Lived Long and He Prospered: R.I.P. Leonard Nimoy, the Man Who Was Spock
His role on Star Trek paved the way for decades of geek culture.
Book Reviews
Friday A/V Club: World Leader Predicts TV Will Solve the Planet's Problems
A blast of techo-utopianism from 1929
Dying and in Denial
A new book offers a powerful dissection of contemporary end-of-life care, yet misses the underlying problem.
Are Demographics Destiny?
Self-interest, sex, snakes, and the making of our political preferences
Scientology-Funded Group Preaching Anti-Drug Message in NYC Public Schools
Foundation for a Drug-Free World was previously kicked out of San Francisco schools for promoting "bogus science."
Venerating Lincoln
A history of Abraham Lincoln's critics would be improved if the author weren't so smitten with Lincoln himself.
Inside Stalin's Head
A biography offers fresh insights on one of history's bloodiest dictators.
Orwell's 1984 Still Matters, Though Not in the Way You Might Think
A Washington, D.C., readathon reminds us that the left once hated this anti-totalitarian classic.
Press Enter for Ecstasy
Wall Street Journal review of the new book, Drugs Unlimited: The Web Revolution That's Changing How the World Gets High, by Mike Power
How Liberals Put Black America Behind Bars
A surprising new history about race and prison
Reason's Holiday Gift Guide
Our staff recommends some of the best books, movies, and music of 2014.
Peter Thiel's Start-Up Manifesto
Why the PayPal founder and early Facebook investor loves monopolies, the Founding Fathers, and Lady Gaga.
Human Sacrifices for Gun Control
Brian Aitken's memoirs show the dark side of a liberal desire to make the world safer.
Psychedelic Science
Despite steep regulatory barriers, researchers are exploring the therapeutic possibilities of ecstasy, acid, and mushrooms.
The Return of Moral Panic
A scholar tries—and fails—to rehabilitate the sex-abuse hysteria of the '80s.
Now Available in Paperback: The United States of Paranoia
With a new afterword on the post-Snowden era.
Who Rules America?
Joel Kotkin's new book fingers Silicon Valley as the new elite. Is he right?
Will Superintelligent Machines Destroy Humanity?
In a thoughtful new book, a philosopher ponders the potential pitfalls of artificial intelligence.
Friday A/V Club: A Soviet Filmmaker Adapts a Post-Apocalyptic Ray Bradbury Story
Forget The Day After. This is the great nuclear-war movie of the early '80s.
Generational Generalizations Gone Wrong
How the guys who coined the word millennials missed the mark
Suspicious Minds in the 1970s
Rick Perlstein's new book shows the strange '70s interplay of skepticism and nostalgia.
Living With Inequality
Has Thomas Piketty really found "the central contradiction of capitalism"?
The Secret History of the Telephone Network
The public utility model of telecommunications was not as inevitable as it seems today.
How 'Crazy Negroes' With Guns Helped Kill Jim Crow
Civil rights and armed self-defense in the South
The Presidency Has Turned Into an 'Elective Monarchy'
A conservative legal scholar's surprisingly convincing case against the Constitution.
Reanimating Detroit
A new book offers some decent ideas for revitalizing the Motor City—but it doesn't go far enough.
The Financial Crisis of 1837
Trying to understand one of America's great economic downturns
