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Class & Inequality, Global Justice

Perpetual Debt in the Silicon Savannah

Kenya's poor were among the first to benefit from digital lending apps; now they call it slavery.

Kevin P. Donovan, Emma Park

Science & Nature

It Was Not Supposed to End This Way

The Anthropocene challenges liberalism’s vision of permanent progress. So why has it become another technocratic tool of liberal bureaucracy?

Arts in Society

The Precarity of Black Motherhood

Jordan Peele's ‘Us’ depicts the terrors faced by black mothers in a way that owes as much to Toni Morrison’s ‘Beloved’ as it does to classic Hollywood horror.

Tao Leigh Goffe

Politics, Race

The Armed and Anxious White Psyche

Contemporary gun violence is not so much terrorism as tradition. It is deeply intertwined with the white supremacist foundations of the United States.

Mark Tseng-Putterman

Arts in Society

The Other Toni Morrison

A timely new documentary celebrates Morrison’s novels, but downplays the enduring power of her work as an editor and essayist.

Politics

The Liberal Who Told Reagan’s Favorite Joke

When Democratic senator Edmund Muskie made a quip about the government being “here to help you,” he surely didn’t know it marked the death of the New Deal.

Lawrence B. Glickman

Science & Nature

Is There a Human Blueprint?

Two new books from intellectual giants Robert Plomin and Nicholas Christakis revive the “nature vs. nurture” debate about what makes people different from one another.

C. Brandon Ogbunu, C. Malik Boykin

Class & Inequality

Everyday Economists

The postwar generation understood why a prosperous working class is crucial to the economy. Can economics be accessible again to ordinary Americans?

Samuel Bowles, Joshua Cohen

Politics, Race

Solid Trumpism

Donald Trump has the most stable approval rating of any president since Harry Truman. As we gear up for the 2020 election, the challenge we now face is the remarkable stability of his support.

War & Security

Sleeping Through the Alarm

With virtually no democratic oversight and over 6,500 missiles in the United States alone, the use of nuclear weapons is almost inevitable. So why is it so hard to think about nuclear war?

Elaine Scarry, Rachel Ablow

Law & Justice

Rethinking Birthright

Amidst chants of “send her back,” it’s clear that we need a more just conception of citizenship—one that abolishes the distinction between “natural” and naturalized citizens.

Stephanie DeGooyer

Forum

Finding the Future in Radical Rural America

It's time to rewrite the narrative of “Trump Country.” Rural places weren't always red, and many are turning increasingly blue.

Elizabeth Catte

Looking for Solidarity

Sophie Maríñez

A Hidden Order of Reality

Walt Whitman’s Boys

Jeremy Lybarger

“More Queer Writing, Please”

Andrea Lawlor, Spencer Quong

A World of Electric Children

Writing the Twentieth Century

Announcing Boston Review’s new Arts in Society project

Aretha Franklin’s Soul

Race in Black and White

Alexis L. Boylan

Politics

The Anti-Defamation League Is Not What It Seems

“Every Crucifixion Needs a Witness”

Toussaint Losier, William J. Barber II

Democracy's Dilemma

Henry Farrell, Bruce Schneier

Solid Trumpism

Finding the Future in Radical Rural America

Elizabeth Catte

The Liberal Who Told Reagan’s Favorite Joke

Lawrence B. Glickman

Choosing Hope

Noam Chomsky, Scott Casleton

The Armed and Anxious White Psyche

Mark Tseng-Putterman

In Search of an Anti-Fascist Language

READING LISTS

Highway to Hell

READING LIST

A reading list for our time of climate crisis.

Essential Reads on White Supremacy

READING LIST

It's what our country was founded on—and it will take more than voting out Trump to dismantle it.

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