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Criticism

Arts in Society

The Bird at the Window

Since 1970 North America has lost 29 percent of its bird population. New York City alone kills almost a quarter of a million birds each year. More than most people, poets have tried to respond to these unremarked—and mostly preventable—deaths.

Calista McRae

Arts in Society

Herman Melville the Poet

The author of Moby Dick is best known for his novels, but he devoted the second half of his life to writing poetry. What can a new Complete Poems teach us about his place in the canon of American letters?

Gillian Osborne

Arts in Society

László Krasznahorkai’s Catastrophic Harmonies

The winner of the National Book Award for Translated Literature serves up an apocalyptic vision of Hungarian society.

Holly Case

Politics

Loving Latin at the End of the World

Many revere Latin as the soul of Western civilization. But its beauty should not keep us from reckoning with its history.

Joel Christensen

Race

Before America Burned

A new book explores how William F. Buckley, Jr., and James Baldwin came to share a stage in 1965 and what their debate over black inequality reveals about the modern conservative movement. 

Robert L. Tsai

Class & Inequality

Games Economists Play

The hostile reaction to Binyamin Appelbaum's new book reveals the tensions within the economics profession over some of its most self-serving myths. 

Marshall Steinbaum

Arts in Society

The Country Without a Post Office

As news leaks of India’s forced communications blackout in Kashmir, the work of poet Agha Shahid Ali is tragically timely—both its depiction of Kashmiri suffering and the poet’s attempt to imagine a better future for his home.

Manan Kapoor

Arts in Society

A World of Electric Children

Science fiction author Ted Chiang wrote the story for the Academy Award–winning film Arrival. Now his new collection of short stories gives us further glimpses of possible futures.

John Crowley

Class & Inequality

The False Promise of Enlightenment

Three new books paint a chilling portrait of darkness in Wall Street, the law, and technology. But the apocalyptic metaphors obscure the real problem, hindering how we fight back.

Quinn Slobodian

Politics

Playing with Fire

In their new book, Ben Bernanke, Timothy Geithner, and Henry Paulson describe fighting the fire of the 2008 financial crisis. But while they did rebuild the burnt towers of Wall Street, they left Main Street to dig out from the rubble.

Reed Hundt

Arts in Society

Announcing Boston Review’s new Arts in Society project

A radical revisioning of our creative writing programs.

Boston Review

Politics

Obama's Original Sin

A new insider account reveals how the Obama administration’s botched bailout deal not only reinforced neoliberal Clintonism, but also foreshadowed an ongoing failure to fulfill campaign promises.

Eric Rauchway

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