Books, Culture & the Arts

The NBC hit Heroes is the anti-24. Its emergency-powers president is the villian — and viewers love it.

Two new books look back at Nazism and conclude that it failed because it ran up against the limits of what it could conquer, not because people rose up against evil.

Is the growing corporate dominance of radio and TV stations, newspapers, and other media organs really that bad for society?

From Mel Gibson to Ann Coulter to Don Imus, the backlash
against celebrity bigots has rolled eastward.

Increasingly, the law lets the public know what’s in the clothes it wears, the air it breathes, and the water it drinks.

Two new books offer some thoughtful insights on the future of the American economy.

Age of Betrayal: The Triumph of Money in America, 1865–1900 by Jack Beatty (Knopf, 496 pages, $28.95) West From Appomattox: The Reconstruction of America After the Civil War by Heather Cox Richardson (Yale University Press, 416 pages, $30.00) Are we living through a “new Gilded Age”? Although the phrase calls up images of rococo mansions […]

You might have had this experience at one time or another: Armed with an opinion you may not have thought much about, you find yourself arguing with someone who disagrees with you on a topic of current events. As the debate proceeds, you begin to understand that you’re actually wrong. The arguments you make to […]