Salvaging Secession
The Founders understood union as a strategic necessity, not a moral imperative.
Book Reviews
Reviews: Love and Monsters and J.R. 'Bob' Dobbs and the Church of the SubGenius
A good teens-and-creatures movie, and a deep dive into a glorious fake cult
Guns and Control
San Francisco writer Guy Smith finds little evidence that the availability of firearms explains differences in suicide and homicide rates.
The Long, Dark History of Family Separations
How politicians used the drug war and the welfare state to break up black and Native American families
Apocalypse Never
The book argues that rising prosperity and increasing technological prowess will ameliorate or reverse most deleterious environmental trends.
Prison by Any Other Name
State involvement in people's lives—even "for their own good"—ends up becoming a backdoor way of policing and control.
Seeing Like an Anarchist
How former slaves built an autonomous, self-sufficient, and nearly stateless society in the mountains of Haiti, and how they lost it
Marijuana Federalism
How do we resolve the cannabis conflict between state legalization and federal prohibition?
John Yoo: The Man Who Would Make the President King
The Trump presidency has been a stress test for maximalist theories of presidential power.
Immortality, Inc.
Meet the wild dreamers and wealthy financiers striving for human immortality.
George R.R. Martin Becomes a Victim of NIMBY Zoning Restrictions
Sadly, he's far from the only one. If we want to "break the wheel" of poverty and housing shortages, we need to roll back zoning.
A Song for a New Day
The Nebula Award winner is set in a near-future where public gatherings have been radically limited by a global pandemic and threats of violence.
Very Important People
Mears' effort to take readers behind the velvet rope and explore the world of clubbing proves both fun and sobering.
Upload
Consumer culture continues into the afterlife in Amazon's sci-fi/mystery/romance/workplace comedy mashup.
The Global Environmental Apocalypse Has Been Canceled
"Environmental humanism will eventually triumph over apocalyptic environmentalism."
Indians and Aliens
Human beings' disturbing capacity to manufacture history to serve our own ends
The Invisible Dystopia
Friday A/V Club: When the post-apocalyptic world looks a lot like the pre-apocalyptic world
Writing an Academic Book, Part II: Choosing a Publisher
Second in a series of posts how how to write an academic book and get it published.
The Justice Department Is Trying To Stop the Publication of John Bolton's White House Tell-All
They’re not likely to succeed, but the real goal is to seize any money he makes.
Writing an Academic Book, Part I: How to Decide Whether You Should Write a Book in the First Place
Part I in a series of posts about how to write an academic book and get it published.
The Vast of Night Is the First Must-Watch Movie of the Coronavirus Era
Amazon Prime Video's latest feature is a smartly made indie sci-fi film from an incredibly promising first-time director.
No, Segregationists Weren't the Driving Force Behind School Choice
The anti-voucher polemic is augmented by historical half-truths and selective omissions of countervailing evidence.
Upload Builds an Amusing, Ethically Fraught World Around Virtual Heaven
Transcending consciousness is presented as a consumer good in a sharp new Amazon Prime series.
Sinking in the Swamp
An extended profile of the numerous, eclectic grifters surrounding President Donald Trump
Suffrage
From our modern vantage point, it's easy to scorn some decisions that suffrage movement leaders made. Suffrage adds context.
The Consequential Frontier
The "privatization" of space has already expanded the possibilities of the cosmos for all mankind far beyond what six decades of federal bureaucracy could.
Secondhand
Adam Minter's book reminds us that a lot of "value is created when less affluent people are given the opportunity to parse the goods of the wasteful affluent."
Vin Diesel's Bloodshot Is the Perfect Movie For the New Direct-to-Streaming Era
This occasionally competent sci-fi action film is best enjoyed from the comfort of a couch.
The Plot Against America Is Not About Trump, Even If Comparisons Are Inevitable
HBO's adaptation of Philip Roth's novel is much more interesting when viewed on its own merits.
A Kurdish Experiment in Decentralized Governance
The Kurds of Northern Syria are trying something different, for better or worse.
'Til Wrong Feels Right
Iggy Pop's new book documents the life of a great individualist who, even more than Sinatra, did things his way.
Sticking It to the Man
A new anthology explores how the counterculture of the '60s and '70s mixed with the mainstream.
Future Tense Fiction
"A good science fiction story can help re-sensitize us" to the peril and promise of the new.
Fault Lines
The relics of terrible segregationist government policies are still felt in East Austin, an area that's quickly gentrifying
American Dirt Author Cancels Book Tour, Claiming Safety Concerns
The tour may be canceled, but the book is benefiting from the controversy.
'Jane Jacobs Goals Through Robert Moses Tactics'
Community planners don't have all the answers.
