Dictatorships don't need to be staffed by ideological zealots; they just need to incentivize "frustrated and mediocre" opportunists who will follow orders to get ahead. New piece by Amanda Taub on important research by Adam Scharpf and Christian Glassel. www.nytimes.com/2026/05/18/w...

Congrats to Brian Goldstone, who won the Pulitzer in Nonfiction for his profoundly moving and important book, "There Is No Place for Us."

There's so much written about A.I. that it's hard to imagine a new way of approaching the subject. But the philosopher Carissa Véliz has done it with "Prophecy," a book so idiosyncratic (and funny!) that it could only have been written by a human. 🎁

How did Elon Musk go from Silicon Valley nerd worried about climate change to chainsaw-wielding billionaire eviscerating government agencies? On Quinn Slobodian and Ben Tarnoff's incisive new book, "Muskism: A Guide For the Perplexed."

important news:

This thread is great, and I will only add that those of us who have been lucky enough to work with John know that he is the menschiest of mensches (in addition to being a wonderful editor and a terrific writer).

The publication of two new books on "mattering" — one by a philosopher, the other geared toward self-help — is arguably a reaction to the nihilism that threatens to engulf us all.

Wonderful to see @historianheather.bsky.social's book about the Bernie Goetz shootings (along with one by Eliot Williams) reviewed by @jenszalai.bsky.social in @nytimes.com. Can't wait to read Heather's study of the "rebirth of white rage" in the 1980s. www.nytimes.com/2026/01/21/b...

I spent some time with C. Thi Nguyen, a philosopher of games, whose brilliant new book offers some insights into how to live in our gamified world. 🎁

And Renee Good’s last words appear to be “We’re not mad at you.”

RIP. Tarr adapted a couple of Laszlo Krasznahorkai’s novels into films, including the 7-hour long Satantango.

The admin’s reflexive assertions of domination as the rationale for everything suggest that Jamelle‘s suspicions — that they’re doing it for gender — is right on the money.

Reminded of Susan Hennessey and Benjamin Wittes's "Unmaking the Presidency," which was published 100 years ago (i.e. in January 2020) www.nytimes.com/2020/02/05/b...

Field “also reminds the intellectuals of the New Right of something they all too easily forget: They can indulge in fantasies of an authoritarian regime because of the freedom and security afforded by the liberal democracy they loathe.” A terrific review of @lkatfield.bsky.social ’s “Furious Minds.”

"Field detects a strain of decadence underlying the fanaticism, with soft, comfortable men mistaking cruel titillation for insight and trying their mightiest to look tough: “It is unseemly, and it is unmanly, and some of you will miss your liberalism when it’s gone.” www.nytimes.com/2025/12/17/b...

Wrote about “Furious Minds,” Laura Field’s excellent new book on how right-wing intellectuals helped the fringe become the rug

Wrote about reading Hannah Arendt 50 years after her death, why we keep invoking her, and what it is we keep wanting her to tell us. www.nytimes.com/2025/12/05/b...

“They put handcuffs on us, a chain over our waist and our feet, like criminals. They transported us in the kind of van that you put dogs in. We were all sitting in a row facing a white wall.… We boarded the plane and it was full…. A lady in her 70s kept throwing up.“

On the one hand, the Jeeves stories; on the other, “The Remains of the Day.”

"Modern dentistry is great. But your dentist doesn’t insist you worship him.” www.nytimes.com/2025/11/27/t...

The 4-month-old infant in this photo was being held by his mother at her green card interview when she was arrested by ICE.

What Clara said. Always struck by how so many smart people — who otherwise decry the deterioration of the discourse — will take the (rage) bait.

Wrote about the argument that cultural stagnation allowed r-w reactionaries to fill in the vacuum. And now that some of them are at the center of power, what comes next? What might look edgy in the recesses of 4chan looks craven when blasted out from official U.S. government accounts.

“With creators no longer required to pursue artistic excellence,” Marx writes, “culture became a lowest-common-denominator battle for attention.” @jenszalai.bsky.social @wdavidmarx.bsky.social www.nytimes.com/2025/11/21/b...

“What might look edgy in the recesses of 4chan looks craven when blasted from official U.S. government accounts.” @jenszalai.bsky.social

Even better:

Sometimes a bare recitation of the facts yields a devastating parenthetical: www.nytimes.com/2025/10/17/u...

An insightful essay. A few years ago I wrote about the literature of shame, including questions about shamelessness, salutary kinds of shame and what shaming can (and cannot) be for: www.nytimes.com/2022/03/18/b...

And one more thing: It’s good to see a Hungarian who isn’t Orbán make international news.

I said this when Krasznahorkai won a National Book Award for translation several years ago, and I’ll say it again: This can only encourage Americans to learn how to pronounce the “sz“ sound, and I am here for it!

László Krasznahorkai has won the Nobel! Here’s an essay I wrote about him in 2012: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v3...

I was struck by that line too. I reviewed Walter’s book “How Civil Wars Start” when it was published way back in 2022. her analysis was incisive; I was hoping it wouldn’t be prescient: www.nytimes.com/2022/01/03/b...

Philippe Sands‘s excellent new book traces the links between the Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet and an old Nazi named Walter Rauff — two men who embraced the deployment of state power to torture and murder human beings.

I highly recommend Philippe Sands’s absorbing new book about Pinochet, a Nazi hiding out in Patagonia, and impunity: www.nytimes.com/2025/10/03/b...

Took a break from writing about political memoirs to review a big new biography of Bruce Lee [gift link] www.nytimes.com/2025/10/01/b...

“But the right did not learn cancel culture from the left; the modern right in America emerged as a censorious movement. It took decades for its free-speech faction to develop, and even then, it has only ever been a minority part of the coalition.” — Nicole Hemmer www.nytimes.com/2025/09/30/o...

I thought Ross Douthat's recent explanation of how late night became more political was off. So I dug into the history. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/24/a...

"Any personal details we do get are titrated just so." @jenszalai.bsky.social on Amy Coney Barrett. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/08/b...

He was brought to the US when he was 12, on a green card. Now, at the age of 62, after serving his time, instead of being sent to his birth country of Jamaica—which was willing to repatriate him—he was sent to Eswatini, a country he has no connection to, and where he might be detained indefinitely.

... and the online proliferation of fake Arendt quotes is one of the earliest and most telling signs of ... what?

this sucks, but it will suck much less when some smart editor snaps up Richard

Just seeing this now. Really fascinating. Hungarians apparently still had measurable Yakut ancestry in the Middle Ages but by now are genetically indistinguishable from others in Central Europe, while Finns are still 10% Yakut