The best book I’ve read this year. Structurally, it sets the standard every historian should aspire to. Out of his glut of detail, Caro doesn’t just recount Robert Moses’s rise and fall; he shows what power is and, more importantly, why it grips people.

I really wanted to like Cahokia Jazz but did not, and this is a good explanation of why

Paperback edition of my book WHAT IRANIANS WANT: WOMEN, LIFE, FREEDOM is out! Get it from Barnes & Noble or wherever you get your books from: www.barnesandnoble.com/w/what-irani...

Trump has difficultly pronouncing "Azerbaijan" while taking credit for ending a war between "Azerbaijan and Albania" (he meant Armenia)

Francesca Hong, a democratic socialist member of the Wisconsin legislature, responded to Zohran Mamdani’s Democratic primary wIn in NYC by saying there needed to be more candidates like him. Today, she announced that she’s running for the Democratic nomination to be Wisconsin’s next governor.

New York Communities for Change is launching a new pro-Mamdani super PAC focused on canvassing Black homeowners in East Flatbush, Canarsie and Wakefield – a demographic that Andrew Cuomo overwhelmingly won in the primary. www.cityandstateny.com/politics/202...

@arashtehran.bsky.social Very helpful. www.theatlantic.com/internationa...

Opposition to Palestinian statehood "should not be presumed to be the only Zionist position," @arashtehran.bsky.social writes, as progressive Zionists "advocate for 'a diplomatic pathway ensuring freedom, security, and sovereignty for both Israelis and Palestinians'.” HT @josephhillyard.bsky.social

Today, the UN officially designated Israel’s assault on Gaza as a genocide. As a party to the Genocide Convention, the U.S. has a legal obligation to obey our own laws, stop weapons sales to Israel, and demand a permanent ceasefire. End the genocide. Ceasefire now.

It’s telling that of the two people with immediate power to take the actions that Miller/Vance/etc are demanding, one misstated the relevant law (Bondi) and the other acknowledged that the First Amendment prevents fulfilling those demands (Carr)

Last month, the Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska was murdered on a light-rail train in Charlotte, North Carolina. “Her killing represents a confluence of failures within the structures meant to keep people safe,” Charles Fain Lehman and Rafael Mangual argue:

under this language charlie kirk would not have been allowed to speak on clemson’s campus

I urge you to read this entire piece by @arashtehran.bsky.social, but if you refuse to do that, at least read this little bit rather than shooting from the hip based on the text of the post below alone.

A great human. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/16/m...

On the 128th anniversary of the first Zionist Congress, I wrote about its founding moments, trajectory and contradictions -- how it's best understood as similar to other nationalist movements

“Zionist” should not be used as a term of derision, Arash Azizi argues. It denotes a nationalist movement whose history “bears revisiting as a reminder of its impetus and early diversity.”

my sister googled "fun things to do in Boston this weekend" and it told her to go sit on Storrow Drive and watch a bunch of college kids peel their rented Penske moving trucks open like tin cans

Old Soviet joke for today: A man walks into a newsstand every day, looks around, and leaves. After a long time of this, the owner says “Can I help you find something?” “I’m looking for the obituaries.” “The obituaries are in the back of the newspaper, comrade.” “Not the one I’m looking for.”

Catch @ahoffmanwrites.bsky.social & Jyotsna Vaid, editors of "The Dream of a Common Movement: Selected Writings of Urvashi Vaid," at the Provicetown Book Festival next month, along with many other author events. buff.ly/t5l3f7k

Folks who dream of a left-labor coalition will definitely want to read City & State on Friday morning.

Tehran is at war with itself over relations with the West. Arash Azizi on why Iran burned down a kosher restaurant in Australia:

The Universal Periodic Review (UPR) is a peer-to-peer evaluation of a country's rights record. All 193 UN member states are expected to participate, and even states like Russia and China do. Today, the US took the unprecedented step of withdrawing from the UPR www.reuters.com/world/europe...

🗣 Socialist Café Discussion - Wednesday 3rd September, 7.30 - 9pm 🇧🇷 The Legacy of Brazil's Workers' Party

Alot of 'socialists' turning up in the replies to endorse the DSA as a social club for cranks and cynics rather than a political movement that gets candidates elected.

Tehran is at war with itself over relations with the West. Arash Azizi on why Iran burned down a kosher restaurant in Australia:

Just out for an evening stroll in beautiful DC, wearing my Third Amendment T-shirt so the national guard knows they can’t come sit in my couch

Why did Australia expel Iran's ambassador? And why did Iranian hardliners help organize petite attacks on Australian Jews last year? I wrote about it. www.theatlantic.com/internationa...

A warning I often repeat for those working with attacker manifestos, like the one in Minnesota: resist the temptation to seize on one element that aligns with your own political or policy concern and elevate it as the only motive. Don't strip-mine manifestos to suit your current political project.

Couldn't agree more with this from @brianbeutler.bsky.social er.bsky.social. Intra-left factional debates are, for the most part, a political luxury good. A lot of these arguments feel like passengers on the Titanic discussing the best way to build a ship.

The triggered terminally online Leftists in the replies tells us this hit the mark.

Phones in schools hinder growth for kids and create more work for adults, Gail Cornwall argues. Cornwall, a parent and former teacher, makes the case for banning them:

I've noticed that Leftists get really, really angry when told their vote actually has consequences.

Supporting Standing Together (نقف معًا, עומדים ביחד) is a position that simultaneously makes me a wimpy liberal squish in some spaces I inhabit and a self-hating far-left radical in other spaces I go.

THIS WEEK ON TGS: we are joined by Surekha Davies @drsurekhadavies.bsky.social for a new take on a man we all already hate. Italian-Americans may be angered.

i feel like the people dunking on this are huffing copium. yeah it's basically a hit piece, but its also an accurate run down of the situation in the org. if you dont want people to write articles like this, then you shouldn't let the kinds of things described within happen

"The mostly young and white crowd hardly discussed Donald Trump’s presidency (a motion that urged such discussion was voted down early on)..." Welp. That about says it all, doesn't it.

This is remedied by getting people to prioritize power, easier said than done but necessary

Sobre a estreiteza de visão de futuro e de conhecimento histórico de algumas tendências sectárias da DSA:

Explore stories on what a person’s dishwasher-loading system says about them, why private schools have gotten out of control, and more.

The Islamic Republic was never inevitable By @arashtehran.bsky.social www.theatlantic.com/books/archiv...

‘The mostly young and white crowd hardly discussed Donald Trump’s presidency (a motion that urged such discussion was voted down early on) and seemed to consist of a consortium of activists, many of them focused on single issues.’ I’m shocked by this, utterly shocked.

Reading this left me with the feeling that George Orwell's beefs with the intellectual left remain pretty much on target today.

American democratic socialism could emerge as a major political force in this country -- but its main organization, DSA, is currently encumbered by those who have no interest in such a perspective. I wrote about it all! www.theatlantic.com/politics/arc...

I love how engaged I am in this treasure hunt even though I’m in Scandinavia. Yo go Zohran!

“Mostafa Tajzadeh, a former deputy interior minister, is one of Iran’s best-known and most broadly popular political prisoners,” @arashtehran.bsky.social argues. He is proof that political space might exist for critics who wish for a different kind of government: