March 23, 2023 issue

Jenny Uglow

Fascism’s Poster Girl

Edda Mussolini was once considered “the most dangerous woman in Europe,” but did she have real political power?

Mussolini’s Daughter: The Most Dangerous Woman in Europe

by Caroline Moorehead

Andrew O’Hagan

Bigger, Deeper, and More ‘Fucked Up’

When asked why HBO took such bold risks on shows that were darker, more libidinal, and more surreal than those on other networks, a company executive replied, “Because we can.”

It’s Not TV: The Spectacular Rise, Revolution, and Future of HBO

by Felix Gillette and John Koblin

Tinderbox: HBO’s Ruthless Pursuit of New Frontiers

by James Andrew Miller

Charles Glass

Disenchantment and Devastation in Syria

The civil war may be over in Damascus, but the mood in the city is one of resignation.

Meghan O’Gieblyn

The Life of the Mind

The Guest Lecture, Martin Riker’s new novel, dramatizes with rare vibrancy an economist’s preparation for a talk on John Maynard Keynes.

The Guest Lecture

by Martin Riker

Ruth Bernard Yeazell

Laughs and Smiles

Frans Hals’s animated paintings allow viewers to feel the presence of an artist whose life is largely unknown.

The Portraitist: Frans Hals and His World

by Steven Nadler

Colin Grant

Far from Jamaica

Jonathan Escoffery’s If I Survive You explores the unsettling shifts in identity for two generations of a Jamaican family in Florida.

If I Survive You

by Jonathan Escoffery

Lauren K. Watel

The Island

a poem

Francisco Cantú

An American Story

Kelly Lytle Hernández’s latest book chronicles the tumultuous period leading up to the Mexican Revolution, casting the border as ground zero for continental change.

Bad Mexicans: Race, Empire, and Revolution in the Borderlands

by Kelly Lytle Hernández

Anjum Hasan

Endless Trances

With a wordy, inventive style, in Tomb of Sand the Hindi writer Geetanjali Shree lets language take the lead.

Tomb of Sand

by Geetanjali Shree, translated from the Hindi by Daisy Rockwell

Sarah Schulman

Red Lights, Blue Lines

Three recent books examine the discrimination and hypocrisy at the heart of policing “vice.”

The Streets Belong to Us: Sex, Race, and Police Power from Segregation to Gentrification

by Anne Gray Fischer

Vice Patrol: Cops, Courts, and the Struggle over Urban Gay Life Before Stonewall

by Anna Lvovsky

We Do This ’Til We Free Us: Abolitionist Organizing and Transforming Justice

by Mariame Kaba, edited by Tamara K. Nopper and with a foreword by Naomi Murakawa

Will Harris

Cuttlefish

a poem

Verlyn Klinkenborg

Trees in Themselves

The oldest trees prompt us to think about how embedded we are in time and could help us recalibrate our perspective on the geologic past.

Elderflora: A Modern History of Ancient Trees

by Jared Farmer

Magda Teter

Reckoning with a Troubled Past

Two European museum exhibitions made good-faith efforts to bear witness to their towns’ early libels against Jews, while not always avoiding the pitfalls of historically loaded discourse.

L’invenzione del colpevole: Il “caso” di Simonino da Trento, dalla propaganda alla storia [The Invention of the Culprit: The Case of Little Simon of Trento from Propaganda to History]

an exhibition at the Tridentine Diocesan Museum, Trent, Italy, December 13, 2019–September 14, 2020

Nieobecni—Z Dziejów Społeczności Żydowskiej w Sandomierzu [The Absent: The History of the Jewish Community in Sandomierz]

an exhibition at the Regional Museum in Sandomierz, Poland, October 23, 2020–April 2, 2021

Geoffrey Wheatcroft

Bloody Panico

The British Conservative Party was once one of the great popular political movements of Europe. What happened?

Tory Nation: How One Party Took Over

by Samuel Earle

Boris Johnson: The Rise and Fall of a Troublemaker at Number 10

by Andrew Gimson

Pandemic Diaries: The Inside Story of Britain’s Battle Against Covid

by Matt Hancock with Isabel Oakeshott

The Fall of Boris Johnson: The Full Story

by Sebastian Payne

Out of the Blue: The Inside Story of the Unexpected Rise and Rapid Fall of Liz Truss

by Harry Cole and James Heale

The Reign: Life in Elizabeth’s Britain, Part 1: The Way It Was, 1952–79

by Matthew Engel

The Worm in the Apple: A History of the Conservative Party and Europe from Churchill to Cameron

by Christopher Tugendhat

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Letters

Mark Hussey,
James Heffernan,
Edward Mendelson

Respecting Second Thoughts

Issue Details

Cover art
Anne-Sophie Tschiegg: sans titre, 2022 (Galerie Albert Baumgarten, Freiburg)

Series art
Jason Fulford: Drawings, 2023