Heeding the Sage of Baltimore
A new edition of H.L. Mencken's Prejudices captures the legendary journalist at his corrosive best
Staff Reviews
Briefly Noted Movies, Books, Television, and More
Al Pacino as Jack Kevorkian, art from the Japanese internment camps, Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution, M.I.A.'s political pop, and more.
Coming Up Short
What Michael Lewis' The Big Short gets right-and wrong-about the financial meltdown
On Being a 21st Century Peasant
Environmentalist Bill McKibben's new book on the coming global collapse.
Bailing Out Big Brother
Media criticism goes from rebelling against media oligarchs to handing them a lifeline.
Profane, Pointless…and Profound
The history Gimme Something Better charts punk's cultural triumph.
A Tale of Two Libertarianisms
The conflict between Murray Rothbard and F.A. Hayek highlights an enduring division in the libertarian world.
Who Will Watch The Watchmen?
An interview with National Journal's Shane Harris, author of a new book on the rise of the surveillance state
A Conspiracy So Immense
What a new history of conspiracy theories tells us about Birthers and Truthers
Social Science in the Drug War Zone
Texas sociologist Howard Campbell on drug war failures at the Juarez/El Paso border
Monopoly's Staying Power
Why the most famous board game in history continues to flourish
Ghetto Capitalists
The inner cities are bustling with informal enterprises, but the government has cut them off from the larger economy.
The Hard Right vs. John Dean's "Conservatives without Conscience"
Are Republicans inherently authoritarian?
