Their new book, “What World Is This?” examines human connection, vulnerability, and grief.

In his 1854 book “Hard Times,” the great British novelist satirized the utilitarian underpinnings of the Effective Altruist movement.

The FBI’s first director built the agency around some of his own worst instincts.

A new book traces the long history of cloaking racism in the language of resistance to an overbearing federal government.

Adrian Hon’s book “You’ve Been Played” warns against the abuses of game logic in work and politics.

Stephanie LaCava’s novel and David Cronenberg’s film “Crimes of the Future” each imagine a world without pain.

For 26 years, Eliot wrote intense, passionate letters to Emily Hale. Should they change the way we read his poetry?

How Americans lost faith in the possibility of self-government

“Our America” presents a mournful, terrible, exhilarating, and honest tour of the United States.

A new book exalts the heyday of music magazines, when electric prose reigned and egos collided.

In Ryan Lee Wong’s novel, a young activist gets caught up in his own idealism.

Lucy Sante’s new book uncovers the story of New York’s pursuit of water, and the homes and communities destroyed in the process.

Beatrice Adler-Bolton and Artie Vierkant make the case for health care revolution.

Timothy Shenk studies how political leaders build popular majorities. He warns that the next big realignment could be led by the right.

While the anti-monopoly movement has a huge victory to celebrate, the publishing industry is left with a sense of impending doom.

Charles Leerhsen’s biography promises the unfiltered story of Bourdain’s life and final days. But it misses the qualities that made him so magnetic in the first place.

In the quaint, well-to-do worlds of her novels, anyone could be guilty. Murderers kill to beat the social order at its own game.

China in the 1980s contemplated a more liberal future—then wrote those debates out of its history.

The author of “City of Quartz” and “Ecology of Fear” changed the way we think about cities, inequality, and climate change.

Longtermists focus on ensuring humanity’s existence into the far future. But not without sacrifices in the present.