online archive
5:00PM
MAR 26 2008
Wildly divergent worldviews
From Seed, what will happen when the two most populous nations on Earth join scientific forces? A review of The Cambridge Companion to Modern Jewish Philosophy. Foreign Policy looks back at the war’s most memorable moments. A Space Odyssey's feuding fathers: The 20th century's defining sci-fi epic was a byproduct of collaboration between two geniuses with wildly divergent worldviews. An interview with Kyoto Prize winner Hiroo Inokuchi on dreams of a carbon future. Anders Kreuger presents extensive research underlying "The Continental Unconscious", his exhibition about Finno-Ugric art and culture that opens in Tallinn this month. Stories about the workings of the real mafia evoke horrid images — and make for good reading. The novelist Isabel Allende once took a potent hallucinogen to overcome writer's block, but no such stimulants were needed to fuel her most gripping work yet. An excerpt form Bad Moon Rising: How Reverend Moon Created the Washington Times, Seduced the Religious Right, and Built an American Kingdom by John Gorenfeld. A review of The Sixties Unplugged: A Kaleidoscopic History of a Disorderly Decade by Gerard J. DeGroot. From Good, an article on harvesting the organs of death-row inmates. Descended from Salinger: The precocious children J. D. Salinger introduced to the literary landscape 60 years ago are still with us.
1:00PM
MAR 26 2008
Unlocking the secrets of time
From HNN, is industrial civilization a pyramid scheme? A review of Babies by Design: The Ethics of Genetic Choice by Ronald M. Green. From FT, a review of One Economics, Many Recipes: Globalization, Institutions, and Economic Growth by Dani Rodrik and Common Wealth: Economics for a Crowded Planet by Jeffrey Sachs (and more). Tony Snow reviews Dinesh D'Souza's What's So Great About Christianity. From Dissent, Fawaz Gerges on how the Iraq War is straining our US soldiers. Beginning in the 17th century, the Japanese adorned temples with beautiful wooden tablets that depicted mathematical questions and theorems. A review of The Future of Gender. A review of I Wish I’d Been There: Twenty Historians Revisit Key Moments in History. A review of Soul of the World: Unlocking the Secrets of Time by Christopher Dewdney. As the economy enters the doldrums, there are some things you can look forward to — including better health. Scribble, scribble, scribble: Allan Massie on why writers write. The onetime enfant terrible, still has no patience for critics, but some of his colleagues say Bret Easton Ellis' writing may one day get the respect it deserves. Tom Stoppard on 1968, the year of the posturing rebel. What’s the point of reviewing Architectural Digest only to make fun of (pretentious) rich people and their multi-million dollar bibelots?
9:00AM
MAR 26 2008
The latest diagnostic fad
From Prospect, a cover story on a liberal Israel lobby; it is conventional wisdom that there were no WMD in Iraq, and yet there remains a dissenting minority who don't accept this; the "state of the nation" novel is back in fashion, but many of these books focus too closely on "authentic" period detail at the expense of convincing characters and stories; memoirs by high-class hookers may be cartoonish, but no less so than accounts that cast prostitutes as victims of rapacious male sexuality; and is trading antidepressant drugs for mood stabilisers a sign of progress, or just the latest diagnostic fad? From The New York Times Magazine, a special issue on redrawing the art world. Sex, truth and Vidia: An excerpt from Patrick French's biography of VS Naipaul. Brother, can you spare me a planet? An article on mainstream economics and the environmental crisis. Where angels no longer fear to tread: Science and religion have often been at loggerheads; now the former has decided to resolve the problem by trying to explain the existence of the latter. From The Nation, a special issue on The New Deal at 75; and a review of The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression by Amity Shlaes. A review of Upstream: The Ascendance of American Conservatism by Alfred S. Regnery (and more). A review of Making Poor Nations Rich: Entrepreneurship and the Process of Economic Development.
