Narve Strand (NTNU): Twin Earth as Crucial Experiment. Why build a border wall? While frequently justified by security needs, the plethora of 21st century border walls more often signify wealth inequality and fear of foreign culture. From Wonkblog, Neil Irwin on how tax preparers and conservatives fight to keep the IRS from making it easier to do your taxes; and Ezra Klein on five charts that will make you feel better about paying your taxes. From New York, why are a bunch of men quitting masturbation? So they can be better men. From TLS, when Dickens met Dostoevsky: Eric Naiman goes on the trail of an extraordinary string of literary hoaxes. Post-Hysterics: David Marcus on Zadie Smith and the fiction of austerity. Isa Blumi reviews Nationalists Who Feared the Nation: Adriatic Multi-Nationalism in Habsburg Dalmatia, Trieste, and Venice by Dominique Kirchner Reill.
