Peter Matthiessen went to Paris to spy and write the Great American Novel. But he was, in his words, “always in the club drinking martinis”

Trump's Mercurial, Constantly Changing Import Taxes Took American Businesses on a Wild Ride

Nobody understands Gertrude Stein. With her, incomprehension was always, at least partly, the point

Buffalo Medicine: A review of “Sea of Grass: The Conquest, Ruin, and Redemption of Nature on the American Prairie”

Trump’s Absurd Citizenship Arguments Went Nowhere

Just 25 literary agents collectively represent half of all authors short-listed for major American literary prizes this century

PJ Harvey: Tiny Desk Concert

A Year After 'Liberation Day,' Trump's Tariffs Will Never Be Legitimate Without a Vote in Congress

Illegal To Defund NPR?

Lions Led by Donkeys

The Bills That Destroyed Urban America

Penny, a Doberman pinscher, wins the Westminster dog show

How to write a novel for the age of the algorithm? Look to the literature of the past. Look to Thomas Bernhard

The philosopher and the tsar. Leibniz courted Peter the Great for decades, seeking influence and ducats. It mostly resulted in frustration

The Great American Condo Crisis

American Gerontocracy

A Rare Great White “Ghost” Caught in the Mediterranean 

Penicillin and American Power

The Future of American Hegemony

Virginia Woolf envisioned female intellectuals with the time and space to write. Hers was an enduring vision — but also a lonely one

"There should be a simple rule for being a thinker," says Cal Newport. "Don’t let AI write anything for you. Writing is to cognitive health what steps are to physical health"

Trump Should Have Made His Case for War to Congress and the American People