His “Up” series chronicled lives over five decades and revealed profound changes in society.

A new book frames this country’s tendency toward state-sanctioned murder as a unique cultural inheritance.

A new history traces an anti-democratic politics of hate, repression, paranoia, and revenge to its origins.

Ayad Akhtar’s novel “Homeland Elegies” confronts a culture that expects Muslim Americans to explain themselves.

Eulogies for the creative class are premature. Art workers can organize—and survive.

Why is one of Turkey’s foremost novelists in jail?

Don DeLillo’s and Jonathan Lethem’s new novels imagine the end of electronic communication.

Endless growth is destroying the planet. We know how to stop it.

The new movie with Carey Mulligan takes a bold approach to a story of sexual assault.

It undermines equality and the common good.

Why consolidation is bad for journalism—and how the government can fix it

The pandemic has only accelerated a years-long trend of cultural homogenization—and it is bound to get worse.

The curious appeal of the country legend in a divided nation

Elif Batuman was duped by a source’s fabrications about the country’s rent-a-family industry. What went wrong?

Her new story collection poses thorny questions and defies her critics.

What critics’ obsession with the vicious takedown says about the current state of food journalism

The director’s “Small Axe” anthology intimately portrays Black spaces.

What critics get wrong about the genre’s long-standing diversity problems

An elaborate secret life was a necessity for children’s author Louise Fitzhugh.

Three new books show how Northern states betrayed Black people, and why many found Mexico a safer destination.