Thoughts on the First Episode of "House of the Dragon"
It's early going. But the first episode is a promising start to HBO's prequel to the famous "Game of Thrones" series.
It's early going. But the first episode is a promising start to HBO's prequel to the famous "Game of Thrones" series.
The Stolen Year acknowledges the public schools' COVID failures but refuses to hold anyone responsible.
Jamie Bartlett's gripping look at the schematics and psychology of a scam
The Marine turned anti-imperialist had two very different legacies, but both clearly emerged from the same man.
On the American right, populism has always been lurking in the shadows.
Raymond B. Craib's new book recounts how Michael Oliver repeatedly tried to create a new country with a government funded entirely by voluntary contributions.
On streaming and the big screen, we're paying more for less, even as new ideas seem few and far between.
Wiretapping and eavesdropping used to be the norm. Perhaps privacy was always an illusion after all.
M. Chris Fabricant's new book details how flawed techniques have led to numerous wrongful convictions.
A new book vividly portrays human beings coping with daily existence in a disintegrating society but offers an incoherent analysis of what went wrong.
Disturbing, eerie, and strangely relevant, it's a return to form for the Canadian horror master.
In his new book, James Kirchick focuses on homosexuals' relationship with national politics during a time when gays were banned from working for the federal government.
Early cities' concentrated populations and burgeoning scale didn't spontaneously summon pharaonic god-kings or bureaucrats.
Vaclav Smil’s How the World Really Works offers hope and despair for techno-optimists.
Despite caricaturing (some) gun owners, Nick Mamatas' conspiracy-fueled science fiction novel avoids moralizing in favor of dark humor.
The latest attempt to adapt the novel comes as an HBO miniseries.
Culture critic Chuck Klosterman's latest covers Nirvana, the first Iraq war, American Beauty, Waco, VCRs, and Ross Perot.
Preet Bharara's new children's book, Justice Is... purports to be "a guide for young truth seekers."
It wasn't just autocrats who were frequently tempted to address "fake news" about the pandemic through state pressure and coercion.
In honor of this major holiday, I post a round-up of my writings, interviews, and talks about one of the world's most popular science fiction franchises.
Bryan Caplan's latest book covers the hypocrisy of unpaid collegiate internships and a defense of the professoriate against the charges of laziness.
In the American right, populism has always been lurking in the shadows.
As long as there have been laws, there have been attempts to silence people.
All that Civil War II talk is overblown—but that isn't the only sort of political violence to worry about.
Were liquor suppliers across the world guilty of outrageous abuses that explain the prohibitionist response?
Asian-American communities are full of stark divisions—including splits over whether to see themselves as "Asian Americans" in the first place.
An anthology looks back at science fiction's New Wave.
Despite all the controversy it has courted, Woody Holton's newest book doesn't stray very far from other scholarly interpretations of the American Revolution.
Crypto was a scene where people without proper credentials and connections in the world of high finance could strike it swiftly rich.
"A future of bloodless global discipline is a chilling thing."
A World After Liberalism details the rise of a young right that finds reactionary ideas relevant and appealing.
James T. Bennett's libertarian critique argues that noncommercial radio can be detached from the state—and that it's better that way.
The TV adaptation of Isaac Asimov's classic trilogy is still fundamentally about the ways in which politics and objective truth inevitably clash.
It's the strangest, most meta sequel of the year.
In the face of state failure, neglect, and overt hostility, black Americans need the right to bear arms.
Can humans design products that assemble (and disassemble) themselves?
Stanton Peele's memoir of his "lonely quest to change how we see addiction" contradicts the prejudices that still dominate the drug policy debate.
How Michel Foucault's encounters in Poland's heavily policed gay community informed his ideas
How the war on terror facilitated Communist China's repression of Uyghurs
In Stephenson's near-future novel, innovation, not legislation, is the best response to a changing climate.
"Feldman contends that [Jefferson] Davis was right and Lincoln was wrong."
Books, films, and more related to the dissolution of the Soviet Union
Marvel's latest superhero epic is a boring movie about boring people.