Filter & Sort
Opinion
From Psychobabble to Stoicism
A new documentary and a book from Denmark point to the dangers and dead ends of the self-transformation industry, says Scott McLemee
Opinion
Another Side of Bob Dylan
In Light Come Shining: The Transformations of Bob Dylan, Andrew McCarron faces an excess of material about his subject, not to mention more than 50 years of investigation, speculation and exegesis by obsessive fans, writes Scott McLemee.
Opinion
Inside the Monkey Mind
Scott McLemee reviews Monkeytalk: Inside the Worlds and Minds of Primates, which elucidates the two camps that have formed in the study of how intelligence evolved.
Opinion
‘At Home in Two Countries’
Peter J. Spiro’s At Home in Two Countries explores how globalization has turned dual citizenship from an anomalous and potentially dangerous condition into something almost commonplace, writes Scott McLemee.
Opinion
The Makings of a President?
Scott McLemee reviews Robert E. Denton Jr.’s scholarship on the American presidency, which highlights how immediately coping with the lack of any guidebook is one of the most urgent demands of the office.
Opinion
‘Suspicious Minds’
Rob Brotherton’s Suspicious Minds illuminates how Trump’s affinity for the conspiratorial mind-set forms the bedrock of his very existence as a political figure, writes Scott McLemee.
Opinion
Consuming Catastrophe
In a new book, Timothy Recuber explores how the media cover disasters like the Virginia Tech shootings -- but sometimes in problematic ways, writes Scott McLemee.
Opinion
Exile Off Main Street
In Exiled in America: Life on the Margins in a Residential Hotel, author Christopher P. Dum portrays not only inescapable squalor but also efforts to create order in seriously damaged lives, writes Scott McLemee.