How scholars achieved some of the most consequential intelligence victories of the twentieth century

Efforts to stop the spread of infectious disease have always suffered from a cycle of panic and neglect. Vaccine skepticism in the new administration brings even greater challenges.

The new millennium promised a more peaceful, more stable, and more prosperous world. What happened?

If Strout was once a master at portraying quiet lives in a big way, she now relies on easy plays for emotional connection and tidy resolution.

At the heart of “Our Evenings” is the recognition that Britain had something beautiful once and threw it all away.

Margaret Sanger and Mary Ware Dennett each had a different vision of reproductive freedom. Would reproductive rights be more secure if Dennett’s had prevailed?

Emmanuel Carrère chronicled the trial of the perpetrators of the November 2015 attacks on Paris. It makes a sharp contrast with the United States’ efforts at Guantanamo.

Lili Anolik’s new book sets the two writers up as rivals. But they were never in competition.

The Cinta Larga people were sitting on a wealth of diamonds. They didn’t turn to mining until they saw devastation all around them.

A far from exhaustive guide to the books that our critics most admired in 2024

Tulsi Gabbard may have scammed her way onto a bestseller list.

“Rejection” is a panorama of deviance, degradation, and isolation.

How politicians used the story of one young patient to neglect the AIDS crisis

A set of peculiarly American anxieties has spread across continents.

Propaganda and deceit are a feature of AI, not its downfall.

Few singer-songwriters have such fun getting under listeners’ skin.

The wealthy don’t want to retire. The middle class can barely afford to. We need a better vision for old age.

Ayşegül Savaş’s “The Wilderness” is part of a slew of little books on new motherhood and art—and their tensions.

John Steinbeck based “The Grapes of Wrath” on Sanora Babb’s notes. But she was writing her own American epic.

Hervey Cleckley wanted to treat the most overlooked psychiatric patients. Instead his work was used to demonize them.