The Latest
Gaza and the End of History
The apocalyptic scale of death and destruction lays bare the contradictions at the heart of the liberal international order.
The Right to Be Hostile
Crackdowns on pro-Palestinian protest force a reckoning with inflated definitions of harm and harassment.
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Celebrating 50 years of Boston Review
“
Not many literary scholars have written important books on torture, war, and nuclear abolition. Yet Elaine Scarry’s literary bluntness reveals the terrifying specter and persistence of nuclear war and deterrence as she protests the normalization of nuclear weapons.
— Katrina vanden Heuvel, editor and publisher of The Nation, on “The Extortionist’s Doctrine” (2024)
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The Right to Be Hostile
Crackdowns on pro-Palestinian protest force a reckoning with inflated definitions of harm and harassment.
COMING SOON
Our 50th anniversary issue, on the responsibility of intellectuals, journalists, and all of us in the age of fascism and genocide.
Robin D. G. Kelley leads a special section with David Waldstreicher, Jennifer Zacharia, and Martin O’Neill. Plus Vivian Gornick on Shulamith Firestone, Elaine Scarry on Plato and the poets, Joelle M. Abi-Rached on Gaza, and more.
Israel and Palestine
“Self-professed defenders of free speech have become the most fervent advocates and agents of government censorship in the twenty-first century.”
—Nicole Hemmer responds to Alex Gourevitch’s “The Right to Be Hostile”
“People fight for the right to protest in order to accomplish something other than the expression of dissent itself.”
—Robin Marie Averbeck responds to Alex Gourevitch’s “The Right to Be Hostile”
“If all construction stopped tomorrow, most of the planet’s rivers would remain confined behind earth and concrete.”
—Kevin P. Donovan, “What Does It Take to Topple a Dam?”
“If we are concerned about the spread of conspiracy theories, we should realize that debunking is a distraction, a Whac-A-Mole game for fact-checkers and information watchdogs. Instead, we should address the dearth of political vision on which conspiracism feeds.”
—Nicolas Guilhot, “Bad Information”
Eighty Years Since Hiroshima
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