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Philosophy & Religion

Don't Overthink It

A new book wants us to navigate life’s crossroads with the precision of a military exercise. But personal decisions are more difficult than even the most consequential political decisions.

Race

Confronting the Relics of the Old South

Two attractions in Alabama—the new national lynching memorial and the First Confederate White House—show a nation struggling to contend with its legacy of racial violence.

Law & Justice

What Statistics Can't Tell Us in the Fight over Affirmative Action at Harvard

A group seeking to ban affirmative action has sued Harvard for discriminating against Asian Americans. The core issues won't be resolved by statistics alone.

Andrew Gelman, Sharad Goel, Daniel E. Ho

Literature & Culture

The Private Edward Gorey

The cult artist and author proves an evasive subject for biography, a fact that would surely have delighted him.

Politics

American Extremism Has Always Flowed from the Border

Donald Trump says there is “a crisis of the soul” at the border. He is right, though not in the way he thinks.

Politics

Trump’s Foreign Policy Isn’t the Problem

It reflects, like a funhouse mirror, a twisted image of U.S. imperialism.

Jeanne Morefield

Global Justice, Literature & Culture

How to Think About Empire

Boston Review speaks with Arundhati Roy on censorship, storytelling, and her problem with the term ‘postcolonialism.’

Arundhati Roy, Avni Sejpal

Reading Lists

Our Most-Loved Essays of 2018

A countdown of the top ten.

Rosie Gillies, Boston Review

Gender & Sexuality

Those Left Behind When #LoveWon

Did the success of gay marriage erode the radical potential of queer politics?

Gender & Sexuality

Every Woman Is a Working Woman

Silvia Federici interviewed by Jill Richards.

Silvia Federici, Jill Richards

Gender & Sexuality

A History of Cyborg Sex, 2018–73

How sex with robots became safer—and better—than sex with actual men.

Gender & Sexuality

Aging into Feminism

Many Amazon holiday orders will be fulfilled by homeless retirees, America’s newest precariat. Taking better care of them is part of feminism’s next big challenge.

James G. Chappel

Class & Inequality

Free the Beach

Andrew W. Kahrl

The Market Police

The Last Man to Know Everything

Think Different

Marx’s New Deal

Marshall Steinbaum

Puerto Rico’s War on Its Poor

Marisol LeBrón

The Democrats’ Yawning Silence on Trade

Public Benefit, Incorporated

Lenore Palladino

Left Behind by Korea’s Success

Race

The Origins of Birthright Citizenship

The Missing Malcolm X

Confronting the Relics of the Old South

When the Klan Came to Town

Michael McCanne

What White Supremacists Know

Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz

Racism and the Wisconsin Idea

S. Ani Mukherji

What Happened to Kanye West?

Christopher Lebron

The Racist Politics of the English Language

Lawrence B. Glickman

Sorry, Not Sorry

Robin D. G. Kelley

READING LISTS

MLK’s Conservative Canonization

READING LIST

An MLK Day reading list on how his radicalism was erased.

Taxes, Damned Taxes, and Statistics

READING LIST

A close look at the legacy of trickle-down taxation.

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