How digital media pursued viral traffic at all costs and unleashed chaos

What makes a mother stay and her estranged daughter leave Appalachia?

Kerry Howley’s new book shows how the government distorts reality to turn whistleblowers into public enemies.

The odds are stacked against Michelle Williams in the new film “Showing Up.”

David Graeber’s final book uncovers the politics of the high seas.

Matthew Dallek’s “Birchers” traces how conspiracy theories went from being a fringe pastime to the right’s defining feature.

How Charles Portis’s greatest success overshadowed the rest of his work

The Polish Jewish writer was forced to decorate the home of his Nazi captor with fairytale murals. Where does the art belong?

The Foreign Policy Association tried to get ordinary people involved in foreign affairs. Why did they fail?

“Nights of Plague” is the story of an epidemic entwined with nationalism, unrest, and reaction.

Erica Berry’s book dissects the cultural fascination with wolves as symbols of everything that terrifies us.

Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway explain how industry groups foisted free-market fundamentalism on the American public and demonized the alternatives.

In the new FX adaptation, Dickens’s England is crass, vulgar—and thoroughly tainted by Empire.

In an era of hacks and breaches, the game of spy vs. spy has changed.

Two new books ask us to shift our attention away from the white vigilantes of Jim Crow and instead focus on what it meant for the survivors.

Director Davy Chou’s second movie is an adoption story for an age of ambivalence.

In her journalism, Malcolm offered devastating portraits of artists, analysts, and frauds. She dreaded receiving the same treatment.

A growing array of shows hype up the feel-good drama of modern sports—while tuning out the controversy.

“Biography of X” is a search for a woman so powerful and prominent that no one really knew her.

A burned-out journalist searches for meaning at a sensory deprivation party and in Jenny Odell’s new book on reconceptualizing time.