Search results for ""new york review of books""

''Superb'' Telegraph''Marvellous'' New York Review of Books ''Brilliant'' Sunday Times''Eye-opening . . . impressive'' Guardian''Powerful'' Nature __________Dust may seem inconsequential, so tiny and mundane as to slip below the threshold of thought. Yet within the next one hundred years, life on Earth will be profoundly changed by heat and drought - and that means dust. In this ground-breaking book, Jay Owens shows how the modern world is made through both the creation and expulsion of dust. From particle air pollution and burning fossil fuels to land degradation, desertification and nuclear fallout, we find out the immense challenges confronting people and the planet.With clarity and insight, Dust: The Modern World in a Trillion Particles helps us understand our legacy and discovers the biggest ideas can be found in the smallest particles.__________<

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Praised for its scope and depth, "Asia in the Making of Europe" is the first comprehensive study of Asian influences on Western culture. For volumes I and II, the author has sifted through virtually every European reference to Asia published in the sixteenth-century; he surveys a vast array of writings describing Asian life and society, the images of Asia that emerge from those writings, and, in turn, the reflections of those images in European literature and art. This monumental achievement reveals profound and pervasive influences of Asian societies on developing Western culture; in doing so, it provides a perspective necessary for a balanced view of world history."Volume I: The Century of Discovery" brings together "everything that a European could know of India, Southeast Asia, China, and Japan, from printed books, missionary reports, traders' accounts and maps" ("The New York Review of Books"). "Volume II: A Century of Wonder" examines the influence of that vast new body of information about Asia on the arts, institutions, literatures, and ideas of sixteenth-century Europe.

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**From the author of the 2023 Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction winning Fire Weather**'An unbelievable tale, expertly told' Patrick Radden Keefe, author of Empire of Pain'A superb book ' Daily Mail · 'Masterful . . . mesmerising, rangy and relentless' Sunday TelegraphA man-eating tiger is hunting villagers in the snowy forests of Far Eastern Russia.A small team of men and their dogs must hunt the tiger in turn. As evidence mounts, it becomes clear that the tiger's attacks aren't random: it is seeking revenge. Injured, starving and extremely dangerous, the tiger must be found before it strikes again.As he tracks the tiger's deadly progress, John Vaillant draws an unforgettable portrait of a distant and brutal region, over 5,000 miles from Moscow. In the harsh depths of winter in Primorye, a gripping tale of man and nature unfolds.'Exciting, memorable - and perfectly, impeccably right . . . a tale of astonishing power and vigour' Simon Winchester, author of The Surgeon of Crowthorne'Extraordinary . . . a brilliantly told tale of man and nature' New York Review of Books

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_There are no better biographies of Goering, Goebbels and Himmler in existence_. **New York Review of Books** Heinrich Himmler was the commander of the SS, and as founder and officer-in-charge of the Nazi concentration camps and the Einsatzgruppen death squads, he was responsible for implementing the extermination of millions of people. By the time he died he was the second-most powerful man in Germany and regarded himself as Hitler's natural successor, going so far as to attempt to negotiate independent peace with the Allies. Based on US documents handed over to the German Federal Archives and the testimonies of Himmler's family and staff, this book examines how a seemingly ordinary boy grew into an obsessive and superstitious man who ventured into herbalism and astrology before finally turning to the science of racial purity and the belief in the superiority of the Aryan race. Filled with insights into Himmler s private life, activities and beliefs, this is an important study of one of the most sinister figures of World War II.

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The last two decades have seen a resurgence of critical and popular attention to Virginia Woolf's life and work. Such traditional institutions as The New York Review of Books now pair her with William Shakespeare in promotional advertisements; her face is used to sell everything from Barnes & Noble books to Bass Ale. Virginia Woolf: Lesbian Readings represents the first book devoted to Woolf's lesbianism. Divided into two sections, Lesbian Intersections and Lesbian Readings of Woolf's Novels, these essays focus on how Woolf's private and public experience and knowledge of same-sex love influences her shorter fiction and novels. Lesbian Intersections includes personal narratives that trace the experience of reading Woolf through the 60s, 70s, 80s, and 90s. Lesbian Readings of Woolf's Novels provides lesbian interpretations of the individual novels, including Orlando, The Waves, and The Years. Breaking new ground in our understanding of the role Woolf's love for women plays in her major writing, these essays shift the emphasis of lesbian interpretations from Woolf's life to her work.

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Andrew O'Hagan's second novel, winner of the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, is a powerful tale about society, celebrity and self-destruction.Maria Tambini is a thirteen-year-old girl with a great singing voice. Growing up on a small Scottish island, she is ready for the big time and keen to escape her ordinary life. When she wins a national TV talent show, she becomes an instant star, yet all the time 'the girl with the giant voice' is losing herself in fame and in a private battle with her own body. Can Maria be saved by love or is she destined to be consumed by celebrity, by family secrets, and by her number-one fan?'Enormously impressive, frequently curious and consistently ambitious.' Sunday Times'What he manages brilliantly is allowing us only restricted access to Maria's mind, so that the reader is put in something like the same relation to her as the sharkish agents and managers who suck her dry.' Guardian'Such command, such grace, and such compassion.' New York Review of Books

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An award-winning scholar’s sweeping history of American secularism, from Jefferson to Trump “Insights that are both illuminating and alarming.”—Linda Greenhouse, New York Review of Books “An essential book for understanding today’s culture wars. Sehat’s clear-eyed and elegant narrative will change how you think about our supposedly secular age.”—Molly Worthen, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill In This Earthly Frame, David Sehat narrates the making of American secularism through its most prominent proponents and most significant detractors. He shows how its foundations were laid in the U.S. Constitution and how it fully emerged only in the twentieth century. Religious and nonreligious Jews, liberal Protestants, apocalyptic sects like the Jehovah’s Witnesses, and antireligious activists all used the courts and the constitutional language of the First Amendment to create the secular order. Then, over the past fifty years, many religious conservatives turned against that order, emphasizing their religious freedom. Avoiding both polemic and lament, Sehat offers a powerful reinterpretation of American secularism and a clear framework for understanding the religiously infused conflict of the present.

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This text is about "Virginia Woolf": the face that sells more postcards than any other at Britain's National Portrait Gallery, the name that Edward Albee's play linked with fear, the cultural icon so rich in meanings that it has been used to market everything from the "New York Review of Books" to Bass Ale. Brenda Silver analyzes Virginia Woolf's surprising visibility in both high and popular culture, showing how her image and authority have been claimed or challenged in debates about art, politics, anger, sexuality, gender, class, the canon, feminism, race and fashion. From Virginia Woolf's 1937 appearance on the cover of "Time" magazine to her roles in theatre, film and television, Silver traces the often contradictory representations and the responses they provoke, highlighting the recurring motifs that associate Virginia Woolf with fear. By looking more closely at who is afraid and the contexts in which she is perceived to be frightening, Silver illustrates how Virginia Woolf has become the site of conflicts about cultural boundaries and legitimacy that continue to rage at the end of the 20th century.

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SHORTLISTED FOR THE EDWARD STANFORD TRAVEL WRITING AWARDS 2024''As epic as it is engaging'' Tom Holland''Jaunty, highly informative and ultimately sobering'' New York Review of Books''A fine book... Leon McCarron''s tough journey paints a rich and enthralling portrait'' Sir Michael PalinThe river Tigris is in danger. It has been the lifeblood of ancient Mesopotamia and modern Iraq, but geopolitics and climate change have left the birthplace of civilisation at risk of becoming uninhabitable. In 2021, adventurer Leon McCarron travelled by boat along the full length of the river, in search of hope.From the source, where Assyrian kings had their images carved into stone, McCarron and his small team journeyed through the Turkish mountains, across north-east Syria and into the heart of Iraq. Passing by historic cities like Diyarbakir, Mosul and Baghdad, McCarron kept the company of fishe

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A sweeping, ambitious history of American democratic socialism from one of the world’s leading intellectual historians and social ethicists “The movement whose tangled history Gary Dorrien tells in American Democratic Socialism has deep roots in the very ‘American’ values it is accused of undermining. . . . The version of the socialist left that emerges is one that deserves more attention.”—Hari Kunzru, New York Review of Books Democratic socialism is ascending in the United States as a consequence of a widespread recognition that global capitalism works only for a minority and is harming the planet’s ecology. This history of American democratic socialism from its beginning to the present day interprets the efforts of American socialists to address and transform multiple intersecting sites of injustice and harm. Comprehensive, deeply researched, and highly original, this book offers a luminous synthesis of secular and religious socialisms, detailing both their intellectual and their organizational histories.

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Me casé con un comunista es la denuncia del maccarthysmo como primera floración de posguerra de la irreflexión norteamericana que ahora se evidencia por todas partes.Entre el sonado entierro del canario del señor Russomanno y el funeral de Nixon, el profesor Murray Ringold ha vivido los noventa años de su existencia. El escritor Nathan Zuckerman se lo encuentra poco antes de morir y, gracias a unas largas charlas que se prolongan durante seis noches, Nathan conocerá la verdadera personalidad del que fue su ídolo en la adolescencia.Me casé con un comunista es una denuncia del maccarthysmo, la sed de poder y la deslealtad que, por escudarse en la patria, se convierte en un pecado menor.Reseña:Los idealismos e hipocresías de la posguerra han sido resucitados de manera brillante.The New York Review of Books

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"This book has been long needed: a concise, complete and dispassionate survey of the Vietnam War. . . . Best of all, the no-nonsense approach answers questions as soon as they arise in the reader's mind." —Kliatt"If there is such a thing as an objective account [of the Vietnam War], this is it. . . . If you want to read one book about Vietnam, read this one." —New York Review of BooksA short, narrative history of the origins, course, and outcome of America's military involvement in Vietnam by an experienced guide to the causes and conduct of war, Larry H. Addington. He begins with a history of Vietnam before and after French occupation, the Cold War origins of American involvement, the domestic impact of American policies on public support, and the reasons for the ultimate failure of U.S. policy.

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Este retrato de una de las figuras más enigmáticas de la Antigüedad ofrece una valoración inteligente y útil de la vida y el reinado de Juliano el Apóstata. Partiendo de una evaluación directa de las fuentes antiguas, del testimonio de amigos y enemigos de Juliano, así como de los escritos del propio emperador, el autor rastrea la juventud del emperador, sus años como comandante de las fuerzas romanas en la Galia y su aparición como único gobernante en el curso de una dramática marcha a Constantinopla. En el análisis de G. W. Bowersock sobre la revolución religiosa de Juliano se observa que el ferviente defensor de una causa perdida hizo demandas intolerables a los paganos, judíos y cristianos por igual.Bowersock ha escrito la mejor historia sobre la vida de Juliano... Su éxito se debe no solo a su apasionado estilo, sino al dominio de una gran variedad de fuentes que le permiten elaborar nuevas interpretaciones de datos inesperados (W. H. C. Frend, The New York Review of Books)R

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Praised for its scope and depth, "Asia in the Making of Europe" is the first comprehensive study of Asian influences on Western culture. For volumes I and II, the author has sifted through virtually every European reference to Asia published in the sixteenth-century; he surveys a vast array of writings describing Asian life and society, the images of Asia that emerge from those writings, and, in turn, the reflections of those images in European literature and art. This monumental achievement reveals profound and pervasive influences of Asian societies on developing Western culture; in doing so, it provides a perspective necessary for a balanced view of world history."Volume I: The Century of Discovery" brings together "everything that a European could know of India, Southeast Asia, China, and Japan, from printed books, missionary reports, traders' accounts and maps" ("The New York Review of Books"). "Volume II: A Century of Wonder" examines the influence of that vast new body of information about Asia on the arts, institutions, literatures, and ideas of sixteenth-century Europe.

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“Brave and vivid.”—New York Review of BooksThese enchanting stories from early modern Bengal reveal how Hindu and Muslim traditions converged on timeless themes of human morality, social culture, and survival. The Bengali stories in this collection are first and foremost tales of survival. Each story in Needle at the Bottom of the Sea underscores the need for people to work together—not just to overcome the challenges of living in the Sundarban swamps of Bengal, but also to ease hostilities born of social differences in religion, caste, and economic class. Translated by award-winning scholar of early modern Bengali literature Tony K. Stewart, Needle at the Bottom of the Sea brims with fantasy and excitement. Sufi protagonists travel through a world of wonder where tigers talk and men magically grow into giants, a Hindu princess falls in love with a Muslim holy man, and goddesses rub shoulders with kings and merchants. Across religion, class, and gender, what binds these fabulous stories together is the characters’ pursuit of living honorably and morally in a difficult, corrupt world.

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Winner of the Zócalo Book PrizeA New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice“Combines powerful moral arguments with superb storytelling.”—New StatesmanWhat moral values do we hold in common? As globalization draws us together economically, are the things we value converging or diverging? These twin questions led Michael Ignatieff to embark on a three-year, eight-nation journey in search of an answer. What we share, he found, are what he calls “ordinary virtues”: tolerance, forgiveness, trust, and resilience. When conflicts break out, these virtues are easily exploited by the politics of fear and exclusion, reserved for one’s own group but denied to others. Yet these ordinary virtues are the key to healing and reconciliation on both a local and global scale.“Makes for illuminating reading.”—Simon Winchester, New York Review of Books“Engaging, articulate and richly descriptive… Ignatieff’s deft histories, vivid sketches and fascinating interviews are the soul of this important book.”—Times Literary Supplement“Deserves praise for wrestling with the devolution of our moral worlds over recent decades.”—Los Angeles Review of Books

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UNO DE LOS DIEZ MEJORES LIBROS ESCANDINAVOS DE NO FICCIÓN DEL NUEVO MILENIO.Kathe Lasnik, el sujeto de esta apasionante y desgarradora contribución a la literatura del Holocausto, demuestra una vez más que el horror indescriptible del genocidio nazi contra los judíos resulta más claro en el examen de las vidas individuales que en la demografía de masas, demasiado vasta como para poder asimilarlo verdaderamente en toda su extensión.The New York Review of BooksCon sumo cuidado y una caligrafía impecable, Kathe Rita Lasnik, de quince años, estudiante de una escuela secundaria en Oslo, rellenó el Cuestionario para judíos en Noruega. Y a la pregunta Cuándo llegaste a este país?, respondió: Siempre he estado en Noruega. El formulario está fechado el 16 de noviembre de 1942. Diez días después, ella, sus padres y una de sus hermanas fueron deportados junto con otros 528 judíos en el barco Donau. El 1 de diciembre Kathe moriría en el campo de concentración de Auschwitz-Birkenau.A tr

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This prize-winning account of the pre-Reformation church recreates lay people’s experience of religion, showing that late-medieval Catholicism was neither decadent nor decayed, but a strong and vigorous tradition. For this edition, Duffy has written a new introduction reflecting on recent developments in our understanding of the period. “A mighty and momentous book: a book to be read and re-read, pondered and revered; a subtle, profound book written with passion and eloquence, and with masterly control.”—J. J. Scarisbrick, The Tablet “Revisionist history at its most imaginative and exciting. . . . [An] astonishing and magnificent piece of work.”—Edward T. Oakes, Commonweal “A magnificent scholarly achievement, a compelling read, and not a page too long to defend a thesis which will provoke passionate debate.”—Patricia Morison, Financial Times “Deeply imaginative, movingly written, and splendidly illustrated.”—Maurice Keen, New York Review of Books Winner of the Longman-History Today Book of the Year Award

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"This learned and heavy volume should be placed on the shelves of every art historical library."—E. H. Gombrich, New York Review of Books"This is an engaged and passionate work by a writer with powerful convictions about art, images, aesthetics, the art establishment, and especially the discipline of art history. It is animated by an extraordinary erudition."—Arthur C. Danto, The Art Bulletin"Freedberg's ethnographic and historical range is simply stunning. . . . The Power of Images is an extraordinary critical achievement, exhilarating in its polemic against aesthetic orthodoxy, endlessly fascinating in its details. . . . This is a powerful, disturbing book."—T. J. Jackson Lears, Wilson Quarterly"Freedberg helps us to see that one cannot do justice to the images of art unless one recognizes in them the entire range of human responses, from the lowly impulses prevailing in popular imagery to their refinement in the great visions of the ages."—Rudolf Arnheim, Times Literary Supplement

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Larry McMurtry’s “big hearted” fiction has been lauded for “taking us places we hadn’t known existed” (Joyce Carol Oates, New York Review of Books). Cadillac Jack does exactly that, inviting readers into the passenger seat of a pearl-colored Caddy with peach velour–covered seats, joining a rodeo-bulldogger-turned-antique- scout at the wheel. “Superbly comic” (Newsday), this rollicking tale echoes the cultural climate of America today, with the cagey yet charming Jack grappling with the capitol’s pretentious elite. As he cruises through relationships with distinctively appealing women—including socialite boutique owner Cindy and discreet mother-of-two Jean—Jack realizes home for him will always be simply barreling down freeways in his Cadillac, wandering the country in search of another obscure treasure. Bolstered with its cast of unforgettable characters, Cadillac Jack entices with the prospect of undiscovered riches around that next bend in the road.

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Born in Kentucky, Elizabeth Hardwick boarded a Greyhound bus to New York City in 1939 and quickly made a name for herself as a formidable member of the intellectual elite. Her eventful life included stretches of dire poverty; lasting friendships with literary luminaries (among them, Mary McCarthy); confrontations with authors she eviscerated in The New York Review of Books (of which she was a cofounder); and marriage to the poet Robert Lowell—whom she adored, standing by faithfully through his episodes of bipolar illness. Lowell’s decision to publish excerpts from her private letters in The Dolphin greatly distressed Hardwick and ignited a major literary controversy. Hardwick imbued her essays with a novelistic flair and a wholly original outlook. In A Splendid Intelligence, biographer Cathy Curtis offers an intimate portrait of an exceptional woman who emerged from a long, turbulent marriage with the clarity and wisdom that illuminate her brilliant work.

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'The most important work on Alexander the Great to appear in a long time. Neither scholarship nor semi-fictional biography will ever be the same again...Engels at last uses all the archaeological work done in Asia in the past generation and makes it accessible...Careful analyses of terrain, climate, and supply requirements are throughout combined in a masterly fashion to help account for Alexander's strategic decision in the light of the options open to him...The chief merit of this splendid book is perhaps the way in which it brings an ancient army to life, as it really was and moved: the hours it took for simple operations of washing and cooking and feeding animals; the train of noncombatants moving with the army...this is a book that will set the reader thinking. There are not many books on Alexander the Great that do' - "New York Review of Books".

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This book collects, for the first time, Colm Toibin's critical essays on Henry James. Shortlisted for the Booker Prize for his novel about James's life, The Master, Toibin brilliantly analyzes James from a novelist's point of view. Known for his acuity and originality, Toibin is himself a master of fiction and critical works, which makes this collection of his writings on Henry James essential reading for literary critics. But he also writes for general readers. Until now, these writings have been scattered in introductions, essays in the Dublin Times, reviews in the New York Review of Books, and other disparate venues. With humor and verve, Toibin approaches Henry James's life and work in many and various ways. He reveals a novelist haunted by George Eliot and shows how thoroughly James was a New Yorker. He demonstrates how a new edition of Henry James's letters along with a biography of James's sister-in-law alter and enlarge our understanding of the master. His "Afterword" is a fictional meditation on the written and the unwritten. Toibin's remarkable insights provide scholars, students, and general readers a fresh encounter with James's well-known texts.

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The first telling of the unknown story of America’s two-hundred-year history as a slave-trading nation “A work of impressive breadth, deep research, and evenhanded analysis.”—James Oakes, New York Review of Books A total of 305,000 enslaved Africans arrived in the New World aboard American vessels over a span of two hundred years as American merchants and mariners sailed to Africa and to the Caribbean to acquire and sell captives. Using exhaustive archival research, including many collections that have never been used before, historian Sean M. Kelley argues that slave trading needs to be seen as integral to the larger story of American slavery. Engaging with both African and American history and addressing the trade over time, Kelley examines the experience of captivity, drawing on more than a hundred African narratives to offer a portrait of enslavement in the regions of Africa frequented by American ships. Kelley also provides a social history of the two American ports where slave trading was most intensive, Newport and Bristol, Rhode Island. In telling this tragic, brutal, and largely unknown story, Kelley corrects many misconceptions while leaving no doubt that Americans were a nation of slave traders.

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Bread, cash, dosh, dough, loot. Call if what you like, it matters now more than ever. In The Ascent of Money, Niall Ferguson shows that financial history is the back-story to all history.From the banking dynasty who funded the Italian Renaissance to the stock market bubble that caused the French Revolution, this is the story of booms and busts as it's never been told before.With the world in the grip of the biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression, there's never been a better time to understand the ascent - and descent - of money.'Beautifully written ... Breathtakingly clever' Sunday Telegraph'A lucid and racy account of financial history' New Statesman 'A fine, readable and entertaining history' Dominic Sandbrook, Daily Telegraph, Books of the Year 'The tales he tells of boom and bust, of triumph and disaster, of bubbles that inflate ... are the very essence of financial history' Bill Emmott, Financial Times'An often enlightening and enjoyable tour through the underside of great events, a lesson in how the most successful great powers have always been underpinned by smart money' Robert Skidelsky, New York Review of Books

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"Like Bolaño, Vásquez is a master stylist and a virtuoso of patient pacing and intricate structure" LEV GROSSMAN, Time Magazine"Juan Gabriel Vásquez . . . has succeeded García Márquez as the literary grandmaster of Colombia" ARIEL DORFMAN, New York Review of BooksA morally complex, searing set of stories by the award-winning author of The Sound of Things Falling and The Shape of the Ruins (shortlisted for the Booker International Prize 2019).A renowned photographer probes a traumatic incident in the life of a fellow guest at a countryside ranch. A chance meeting at a regimental reunion obliges a Korean War veteran to confront a shameful secret. And in the title story, an internet search for a book published in 1887 leads to the discovery of the life of a remarkable woman: Aurelia de Léon, who arrives in Colombia as a child orphan of the Great War, but as a free-spirited adult runs foul of her adoptive country's deep conservatism.The characters in Songs for the Flames are all men and women touched by violence - sometimes directly, sometimes tangentially - but the lives of all of them are irrevocably changed by the experience.Translated from the Spanish by Anne McLean

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'Reinvents the particulars of slavery in America with a comic rage ... The book explodes. Reed's special grace is anger ... a muscular, luminous prose' The New York Times'It always was, and will always be the most fearlessly original, most viciously political, most rambunctiously funny epic of slavery ever written. America almost doesn't deserve it' - Marlon James (2015 Man Booker Prize Winner)'I loves it here ... We gets whipped with a velvet whip, and there's free dentalcare'Three slaves are on the run in the deep South, with their former master hot on their heels and the Civil War raging.One of them arms himself for a final showdown; one sells his body for pornographic movies; while the last, Raven Quickskill - hero, poet, heartbreaker - swigs champagne on a non-stop jumbo jet to Canada. Taking us on a wild ride through a nineteenth century littered with limousines, waterbeds and colour TVs, Flight to Canada is a surreal, madly funny satire on race in America.'A satirical "neo-slave narrative", the novel wittily conjoins the past of slavery to the present of America's bicentennial' New York Review of Books

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The great Icelandic novel by the Nobel Prize-winning novelist Halldór Laxness'There are good books and there are great books and there may be a book that is something still more: it is the book of your life' New York Review of BooksFirst published in 1946, this is a humane, epic novel set in rural Iceland. Bjartus is a sheep farmer determined to eke a living from a blighted patch of land. Nothing, not merciless weather, nor his family, will come between him and his goal of financial independence. Only Asta Solillja, the child he brings up as his daughter, can pierce his stubborn heart. As she grows up, keen to make her own way in the world, Bjartus's obstinacy threatens to estrange them forever.Written by the Nobel prize-winner dubbed the 'Tolstoy of the North', this is a magnificent portrait of the eerie Icelandic landscape and one man's dogged struggle for independence.'I defy anyone to finish Halldór Laxness's Independent People without wetting the pages with tears' Jonathan Franzen, Guardian'The greatest Icelandic novel and surely one of the best books of the 20th century' Hallgrímur Helgason, Guardian

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Ford is editing the UK edition of the Best American Poetry series and we can expect attention and support from them here Ford is a very active critic and both well-known and well-respected in both the UK and the US with regular reviews in the TLS and London Review of Books Ford's work has appeared in the US in The New York Review of Books, The Nation, The Paris Review, Bookforum, and The New Republic. Ford is well known here for having edited O'Hara's selected poems Ford's work has been reviewed enthusiastically in the New York Times in the past Ford's is constantly reinventing himself as a poet, giving the collection a versatility and variety that's exciting Ford says he writes to delight the reader (Vendler has said she reads him "with instant joy") and it's that kind of energy that drives his work and makes it so appealing Ford first came to poetry via the American greats—Whitman, Dickinson, Stevens, Williams, Eliot, Pound, Bishop, Ginsberg—and those influences are alive in his work today The book includes a section of new poems as well, for those US readers familiar with his work

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Winner of the 2005 Pulitzer PrizeThe explosive, New York Times bestselling first-hand account of America's secret history in AfghanistanPrize-winning journalist Steve Coll has spent years reporting from the Middle East, accessed previously classified government files and interviewed senior US officials and foreign spymasters. Here he gives the full inside story of the CIA's covert funding of an Islamic jihad against Soviet forces in Afghanistan, explores how this sowed the seeds of bn Laden's rise, traces how he built his global network and brings to life the dramatic battles within the US government over national security. Above all, he lays bare American intelligence's continual failure to grasp the rising threat of terrrorism in the years leading to 9/11 - and its devastating consequences.'Riveting ... the finest historical narrative so far on the origins of al Qaeda in the post-Soviet rubble of Afghanistan ... provides fresh details and helps explain the motivations behind many crucial decisions' The New York Times Book Review'A remarkable book ... the CIA itself would be hard put to beat his grasp of global events' New York Review of Books

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"Like Bolaño, Vásquez is a master stylist and a virtuoso of patient pacing and intricate structure" LEV GROSSMAN, Time Magazine"Juan Gabriel Vásquez . . . has succeeded García Márquez as the literary grandmaster of Colombia" ARIEL DORFMAN, New York Review of BooksA morally complex, searing set of stories by the award-winning author of The Sound of Things Falling and The Shape of the Ruins (shortlisted for the Booker International Prize 2019).A renowned photographer probes a traumatic incident in the life of a fellow guest at a countryside ranch. A chance meeting at a regimental reunion obliges a Korean War veteran to confront a shameful secret. And in the title story, an internet search for a book published in 1887 leads to the discovery of the life of a remarkable woman: Aurelia de Léon, who arrives in Colombia as a child orphan of the Great War, but as a free-spirited adult runs foul of her adoptive country's deep conservatism.The characters in Songs for the Flames are all men and women touched by violence - sometimes directly, sometimes tangentially - but the lives of all of them are irrevocably changed by the experience.Translated from the Spanish by Anne McLean

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It is commonly thought in secular society that the Bible is one of the greatest hindrances to doing justice. Isn't it full of regressive views? Didn't it condone slavery? Why look to the Bible for guidance on how to have a more just society? But Keller sees it another way. In GENEROUS JUSTICE, Keller explores a life of justice empowered by an experience of grace: a generous, gracious justice. Here is a book for believers who find the Bible a trustworthy guide, as well as those who suspect that Christianity is a regressive influence in the world.Keller's church, founded in the 80s with fewer than 100 congregants, is now exponentially larger. Over 5,000 people regularly attend Sunday services, and another 25,000 download Keller's sermons each week. A recent profile in New York magazine described his typical sermon as 'a mix of biblical scholarship, pop culture, and whatever might have caught his eye in The New York Review of Books or on Salon.com that week.' In short, Timothy Keller speaks a language that many thousands of people understand. In GENEROUS JUSTICE, he offers them a new understanding of modern justice and human rights.

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Los mejores ensayos sobre arte y literatura de una maestra del periodismoUno de los libros del 2013 para el Publisher Weekly y finalista del premio de la crítica de EEUULa obra de Janet Malcolm figura destacada en cualquier canon de la no ficción contemporánea, con piezas tan brillantes como la que da título a esta antología, con sus cuarenta y un intentos fallidos de comenzar un perfil del pintor David Salle, que acaban componiendo un retrato excepcional del artista. Malcolm está entre los autores más estimulantes intelectualmente, capaz de convertir epifanías de la percepción en estallidos de conocimiento como escribió David Lehman en The Boston Globe.Esta antología reúne piezas publicadas a lo largo de varias décadas, sobre todo en The New Yorker y The New York Review of Books, que recogen su interés por los artistas y su trabajo, pintores, fotógrafos, escritores y críticos. Explora la obsesión del grupo de Bloomsbury por la creación tanto plástica como literaria; las apas

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In this neighbourhood, only the dead go out for a walk'...A young party animal collapses in a Parisian disco and dies on the dance floor, only to watch his soul departing his body. Two embittered police detectives debate their favourite weapons. A violent man looks back on his childhood and seeks out the now-aged male porn actor his mother shot movies with.Here is the eagerly anticipated second volume of stories by Roberto Bolaño. Tender or etched in acid; hazily suggestive or chillingly definitive: The Return is a trove of strangely arresting short master works.TRANSLATED BY CHRIS ANDREWS''Dark, intimate and sneakily touching... There is gold to be found in this collection'' New York Review of BooksEach tale turns the reader into a voyeur, grasping at snapshots of troubled lives and ghosts' Observer A compelling encapsulation of Bolaño''s work... You won''t be bored' Los Angeles Times

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Arthur Danto is the Johnsonian Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at Columbia University and the most influential philosopher of art in the last half century. As an art critic for The Nation for 25 years and frequent contributor to other widely read outlets such as the New York Review of Books, Danto also has become one of the most respected public intellectuals of his generation. He is the author of some two dozen important books, along with hundreds of articles and reviews which have been the center of both controversy and discussion. In this volume Danto offers his intellectual autobiography and responds to essays by 27 of the keenest critics of his thought from the worlds of philosophy and the arts. The book includes 16 pages of color art reproductions. Danto is the author dozens of books on art, philosophy, the philosophy of art, and art criticism. He is a rare philosopher who is also a public intellectual.

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When a man's body is discovered near the picturesque town of Hay-on-Wye, his death appears to be 'unnatural' in every sense. Merrily Watkins is drafted in to investigate.'Rickman's writing style reflects his subject matter: spooky and indirect, elegantly crafted but always a sense of shadow behind you, that you've missed something you should have seen.' - New York Review Of Books'The wind was rising. A smokey cloud-mass shaped like a rabbit made a forward bound in slow motion and came apart over Hay Castle a mile away on the horizon . . .'Hay-on-Wye: the Welsh-border town that became world-famous for declaring independence and crowning its own king. But now black clouds are gathering, to meet rising shadows from the past. As the town fights for its future, a man drowns in a deep pool below a waterfall, a woman disappears, and diocesan exorcist Merrily Watkins - alone and vulnerable - uncovers a secret history of dark magic and ritual murder.

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WITH A NEW INTRODUCTION BY THE AUTHOR'If you buy one literary novel this year, make sure it's this' THE TIMES'The Romantics looks to Flaubert's Sentimental Education, to E.M. Forster, to Turgenev. But it is the product of a distinctive and sharp intelligence' HILARY MANTEL 'Grips the reader as artfully and as compellingly as the first page of A Passage to India' THE NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKSWINNER OF THE LOS ANGELES TIMES ART SEIDENBAUM AWARD FOR FIRST FICTION1989. In the holy city of Varanasi, 19-year-old Samar rents a room to avoid a small-town job and lose himself in reading about worlds outside of India. But when he is thrust into local a circle of privileged European and American expats, led by the charismatic Miss West, Samar will soon face his own silent desires and crumbling beliefs.'A work of art' Financial Times'A supernova' The Washington Post'A charming debut' The Independent

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Prospect Top 50 Thinker of 2021British Academy Book Prize FinalistPROSE Award Finalist“Provocative, elegantly written.”—Fara Dabhoiwala, New York Review of Books“Demonstrates how a broad rethinking of political issues becomes possible when Western ideals and practices are examined from the vantage point of Asia and Africa.”—Pankaj Mishra, New York Review of BooksIn case after case around the globe—from Israel to Sudan—the colonial state and the nation-state have been constructed through the politicization of a religious or ethnic majority at the expense of an equally manufactured minority. The model emerged in America, where genocide and internment on reservations created a permanent native minority. In Europe, this template would be used both by the Nazis and the Allies.Neither Settler nor Native offers a vision for arresting this process. Mahmood Mamdani points to inherent limitations in the legal solution attempted at Nuremberg. Political violence demands political solutions: not criminal justice but a rethinking of the political community to include victims and perpetrators, bystanders and beneficiaries. Making the radical argument that the nation-state was born of colonialism, he calls on us to delink the nation from the state so as to ensure equal political rights for all who live within its boundaries.“A deeply learned account of the origins of our modern world…Mamdani rejects the current focus on human rights as the means to bring justice to the victims of this colonial and postcolonial bloodshed. Instead, he calls for a new kind of political imagination…Joining the ranks of Hannah Arendt’s Imperialism, Frantz Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth, and Edward Said’s Orientalism, this book is destined to become a classic text of postcolonial studies and political theory.”—Moustafa Bayoumi, author of How Does It Feel to Be a Problem?“A masterwork of historical comparison and razor-sharp political analysis, with grave lessons about the pitfalls of forgetting, moralizing, or criminalizing this violence. Mamdani also offers a hopeful rejoinder in a revived politics of decolonization.”—Karuna Mantena, Columbia University“A powerfully original argument, one that supplements political analysis with a map for our political future.”—Faisal Devji, University of Oxford

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Praised for its scope and depth, "Asia in the Making of Europe" is the first comprehensive study of Asian influences on Western culture. For volumes I and II, the author has sifted through virtually every European reference to Asia published in the sixteenth-century; he surveys a vast array of writings describing Asian life and society, the images of Asia that emerge from those writings, and, in turn, the reflections of those images in European literature and art. This monumental achievement reveals profound and pervasive influences of Asian societies on developing Western culture; in doing so, it provides a perspective necessary for a balanced view of world history."Volume I: The Century of Discovery" brings together "everything that a European could know of India, Southeast Asia, China, and Japan, from printed books, missionary reports, traders' accounts and maps" ("The New York Review of Books"). "Volume II: A Century of Wonder" examines the influence of that vast new body of information about Asia on the arts, institutions, literatures, and ideas of sixteenth-century Europe.

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'A very good guide to the state we're in' Paul Krugman, New York Review of Books'A well-written, thought-provoking book by one of America's leading economic thinkers and progressive champions.' Huffington PostDo you recall a time when the income of a single schoolteacher or baker or salesman or mechanic was enough to buy a home, have two cars, and raise a family?Robert Reich does - in the 1950s his father sold clothes to factory workers and the family earnt enough to live comfortably. Today, this middle class is rapidly shrinking: American income inequality and wealth disparity is the greatest it's been in eighty years.As Reich, who served in three US administrations, shows, the threat to capitalism is no longer communism or fascism but a steady undermining of the trust modern societies need for growth and stability.With an exclusive chapter for Icon's edition, Saving Capitalism is passionate yet practical, sweeping yet exactingly argued, a revelatory indictment of the economic status quo and an empowering call to action.

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New York Times 'Best Art Books' 2020 'Essential' – Sunday Times 'Brilliantly enraged' - New York Review of Books 'A real game-changer'– Economist Walk into any Western museum today and you will see the curated spoils of Empire. They sit behind plate glass: dignified, tastefully lit. Accompanying pieces of card offer a name, date and place of origin. They do not mention that the objects are all stolen. Few artefacts embody this history of rapacious and extractive colonialism better than the Benin Bronzes - a collection of thousands of metal plaques and sculptures depicting the history of the Royal Court of the Obas of Benin City, Nigeria. Pillaged during a British naval attack in 1897, the loot was passed on to Queen Victoria, the British Museum and countless private collections. The Brutish Museums sits at the heart of a heated debate about cultural restitution, repatriation and the decolonisation of museums. Since its first publication, museums across the western world have begun to return their Bronzes to Nigeria, heralding a new era in the way we understand the collections of empire we once took for granted.

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“Powerful as well as highly engaging—a brilliant book.”—Amartya SenA Times Higher Education Book of the WeekIt may sound crazy to pay people whether or not they’re working or even looking for work. But the idea of providing an unconditional basic income to everyone, rich or poor, active or inactive, has long been advocated by such major thinkers as Thomas Paine, John Stuart Mill, and John Kenneth Galbraith. Now, with the traditional welfare state creaking under pressure, it has become one of the most widely debated social policy proposals in the world. Basic Income presents the most acute and fullest defense of this radical idea, and makes the case that it is our most realistic hope for addressing economic insecurity and social exclusion.“They have set forth, clearly and comprehensively, what is probably the best case to be made today for this form of economic and social policy.”—Benjamin M. Friedman, New York Review of Books“A rigorous analysis of the many arguments for and against a universal basic income, offering a road map for future researchers.”—Wall Street Journal“What Van Parijs and Vanderborght bring to this topic is a deep understanding, an enduring passion and a disarming optimism.”—Steven Pearlstein, Washington Post

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Placing Bruno—both advanced philosopher and magician burned at the stake—in the Hermetic tradition, Yates's acclaimed study gives an overview not only of Renaissance humanism but of its interplay—and conflict—with magic and occult practices. "Among those who have explored the intellectual world of the sixteenth century no one in England can rival Miss Yates. Wherever she looks, she illuminates. Now she has looked on Bruno. This brilliant book takes time to digest, but it is an intellectual adventure to read it. Historians of ideas, of religion, and of science will study it. Some of them, after reading it, will have to think again. . . . For Miss Yates has put Bruno, for the first time, in his tradition, and has shown what that tradition was."—Hugh Trevor-Roper, New Statesman"A decisive contribution to the understanding of Giordano Bruno, this book will probably remove a great number of misrepresentations that still plague the tormented figure of the Nolan prophet."—Giorgio de Santillana, American Historical Review"Yates's book is an important addition to our knowledge of Giordano Bruno. But it is even more important, I think, as a step toward understanding the unity of the sixteenth century."—J. Bronowski, New York Review of Books

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The third volume in Alan Walker's magisterial biography of Franz Liszt. "You can't help but keep turning the pages, wondering how it will all turn out: and Walker's accumulated readings of Liszt's music have to be taken seriously indeed."—D. Kern Holoman, New York Review of Books "A conscientious scholar passionate about his subject. Mr. Walker makes the man and his age come to life. These three volumes will be the definitive work to which all subsequent Liszt biographies will aspire."—Harold C. Schonberg, Wall Street Journal "What distinguishes Walker from Liszt's dozens of earlier biographers is that he is equally strong on the music and the life. A formidable musicologist with a lively polemical style, he discusses the composer's works with greater understanding and clarity than any previous biographer. And whereas many have recycled the same erroneous, often damaging information, Walker has relied on his own prodigious, globe-trotting research, a project spanning twenty-five years. The result is a textured portrait of Liszt and his times without rival."—Elliot Ravetz, Time "The prose is so lively that the reader is often swept along by the narrative. . . . This three-part work . . . is now the definitive work on Liszt in English and belongs in all music collections."—Library Journal

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Nau cannot remember a time when she was not one with the world around her: with the fast breeze, the green grass, the high clouds, and the endless blue sky above the Shingled Spit. But her greatest joy is to visit the sea, where whales gather every morning to gaily spout rainbows. Then, one day, she finds a man in the mist where a whale should be: Reu, who has taken human form out of his Great Love for her. Together these first humans become parents to two whales, and then to mankind. Even after Reu dies, Nau continues on, sharing her story of brotherhood between the two species. But as these origins grow more distant, the old woman’s tales are subsumed into myth—and her descendants turn increasingly bent on parading their dominance over the natural world. Buoyantly translated into English for the first time by Ilona Yazhbin Chavasse, this new entry in the Seedbank series is at once a vibrant retelling of the origin story of the Chukchi, a timely parable about the destructive power of human ego—and another unforgettable work of fiction from Yuri Rytkheu, “arguably the foremost writer to emerge from the minority peoples of Russia’s far north” (New York Review of Books).

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Winner of the Distinguished Contribution to Scholarship Award, American Sociological AssociationCo-Winner of the Ralph J. Bunche Award, American Political Science AssociationIn a work of prodigious scholarship and enormous breadth, which draws on the tribal, ancient, premodern, and modern worlds, Orlando Patterson discusses the internal dynamics of slavery in sixty-six societies over time. These include Greece and Rome, medieval Europe, China, Korea, the Islamic kingdoms, Africa, the Caribbean islands, and the American South.Praise for the previous edition:“Densely packed, closely argued, and highly controversial in its dissent from much of the scholarly conventional wisdom about the function and structure of slavery worldwide.”—Boston Globe“There can be no doubt that this rich and learned book will reinvigorate debates that have tended to become too empirical and specialized. Patterson has helped to set out the direction for the next decades of interdisciplinary scholarship.”—David Brion Davis, New York Review of Books“This is clearly a major and important work, one which will be widely discussed, cited, and used. I anticipate that it will be considered among the landmarks in the study of slavery, and will be read by historians, sociologists, and anthropologists—as well as many other scholars and students.”—Stanley Engerman

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The first volume in a pioneering account of Oliver Cromwell—providing a major new interpretation of one of the greatest figures in history“Hutton’s book is intelligent, well documented, and stylish.”—Keith Thomas, New York Review of Books Oliver Cromwell (1599–1658)—the only English commoner to become the overall head of state—is one of the great figures of history, but his character was very complex. He was at once courageous and devout, devious and self-serving. As a parliamentarian, he was devoted to his cause; as a soldier, he was ruthless. Cromwell’s speeches and writings surpass in quantity those of any other ruler of England before Victoria and, for those seeking to understand him, he has usually been taken at his word. In this remarkable new work, Ronald Hutton untangles the facts from the fiction. Cromwell, pursuing his devotion to God and cementing his Puritan support base, quickly transformed from obscure provincial to military victor. At the end of the first English Civil War, he was poised to take power. Hutton reveals a man who was both genuine in his faith and deliberate in his dishonesty—and uncovers the inner workings of the man who has puzzled biographers for centuries.

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'One of the great American prose stylists of our time.' New York Times'Auster really does possess the wand of the enchanter.' New York Review of BooksThe New York Trilogy is perhaps the most astonishing work by one of America's most consistently astonishing writers. The Trilogy is three cleverly interconnected novels that exploit the elements of standard detective fiction and achieve a new genre that is all the more gripping for its starkness. It is a riveting work of detective fiction worthy of Raymond Chandler, and at the same time a profound and unsettling existentialist enquiry in the tradition of Kafka or Borges. In each story the search for clues leads to remarkable coincidences in the universe as the simple act of trailing a man ultimately becomes a startling investigation of what it means to be human. The New York Trilogy is the modern novel at its finest: a truly bold and arresting work of fiction with something to transfix and astound every reader.'Marks a new departure for the American novel.' Observer'A shatteringly clever piece of work . . . Utterly gripping, written with an acid sharpness that leaves an indelible dent in the back of the mind.' Sunday Telegraph

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