The Return of Moral Panic
A scholar tries—and fails—to rehabilitate the sex-abuse hysteria of the '80s.
Book Reviews
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
Glenn Greenwald's No Place to Hide Reveals the Secrets Behind Edward Snowden's Revelations
A pulse-racing exposé of the government's conspiracy to violate every American's right to privacy
Why Civil Rights and Gun Rights Are Inseparable
A riveting new book restores "the black tradition of arms" to its proper place in American history.
Choose Your Own Adventure
Propaganda, games, and the quest for a more 'democratic' media environment.
Arrested Development
Economists who set out to help the world's poor may actually be part of the problem.
Living with Inequality
Has Thomas Piketty really found "the central contradiction of capitalism"?
Liberal Pundits of the World Unite Over Thomas Piketty's New Book
Democratic pundits have enthusiastically and unconditionally embraced Capital in the Twenty-First Century, a book that evokes Karl Marx and talks about tweaking the Soviet experiment.
How People Behave in Virtual Worlds: A Review of The Proteus Paradox
Down on the collective gold farm.
Greenspan's Blindness
The former Fed chief seems oblivious to his role in the housing bubble, the financial crisis, and the recession.
How Writers Coped Without Copyright
Intellectual property and piracy managed to co-exist in 19th-century America.
