My newest review, of Lynn Hunt's "The Revolutionary Self," in The Nation: www.thenation.com/article/soci...

Trump’s Pentagon rebrand shows what @mattduss.bsky.social ss calls “belligerent chest-thumping, not peacemaking — with dangerous consequences for U.S. security, global standing, and our armed forces.” @nytimes.com www.nytimes.com/2025/09/06/u...

“what is one to make of a book that, after detailing how Biden and his team helped perpetrate an era-­defining catastrophe in Gaza, proceeds to describe that team as ‘an example of steady and purposeful leadership’?” On Woodward’s “War” @thenation.com www.thenation.com/article/worl...

Baldwin’s loves helped him recover from personal crises and learn to accept himself. They also helped him find hope in an era of violence and upheaval.

I wrote about Nicholas Boggs' new James Balddwin biography for @thenation.com Read here: www.thenation.com/article/cult...

Read @mattduss.bsky.social in @thenation.com on Bob Woodward’s "War": In its total absence of real reflection on what the Biden admin could have gotten wrong, the book serves as a compelling brief for why Trump was reelected. www.thenation.com/article/worl...

this is excellent www.thenation.com/article/cult...

This was great and was glad it offered an audio version! @thenation.com @rodriquese.bsky.social www.thenation.com/article/cult...

"Big Tech’s ambition is to create an archive of everything we do and everything we are—an aspiration that is unprecedented in human history. The only thing that comes close can be found in religion." I wrote about Vauhini Vara's Searches @thenation.com (free link!) www.thenation.com/article/soci...

“‘War’ reflects how the Democratic Party establishment desperately wants to see itself…More than any other recent president, Biden embodied the foreign policy establishment, and that establishment cannot admit failure” @mattduss.bsky.social on Bob Woodward’s “War” www.thenation.com/article/worl...

"There can be no real defeat of the far right until liberals learn what the right already understands all too well: Politics is telling the difference between a friend and a foe." www.thenation.com/article/cult...

Fall Books features Matt Duss on the crisis of Democratic foreign policy, Becca Rothfeld on Ingeborg Bachmann, Laila Lalami on the Internet's lost souls, Sarah Chihaya on Susan Choi, Elias Rodriques on James Baldwin, and @jeetheer.bsky.social on William Buckley: www.thenation.com/issue/octobe...

Thrilled to be nominated! Thanks to my brilliant editor @davidmarcus.bsky.social, who commissioned me as well as another finalist, and who has made The Nation's @booksandthearts.bsky.social section such a vital space for book criticism.

Great piece on why living an examined life can't exclude examinations of social relations and politics, especially for a species that is inherently social and political, by @olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social. (Or as I almost put it, great piece of thinking about thinking about thinking.)

Spring Books is live! Featuring @olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social on Agnes Callard, Vivian Gornick on Murray Kempton, @lioneltrolling.bsky.social on Young Trump, Sarah Chihaya on Sigrid Nunez, @ednabonhomme.bsky.social on Zora Neale Hurston, and John Banville on Ireland www.thenation.com/issue/may-20...

A focus on philosophical conversation, while a useful remedy to all of today's distraction, can also become a strategy of evasion. @olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social in our Spring Books issue www.thenation.com/article/cult... @thenation.com

Vivian Gornick in Spring Books on the many lives of Murray Kempton @thenation.com www.thenation.com/article/cult...

"The very first line of Open Socrates admonishes the reader, “There is a question you are avoiding.” For Callard, that question is: Why are you living this way? But this only points to a host of questions that Callard herself avoids..." me for @thenation.com www.thenation.com/article/cult...

The making and remaking of Capital. Epic piece by Alyssa Battistoni in latest @booksandthearts.bsky.social / @thenation.com on Marx’s masterpiece, the history of its translations, and what it means to read it today www.thenation.com/article/soci...

"You could call the business model Trump developed a kind of personality arbitrage." @lioneltrolling.bsky.social in @thenation.com's Spring Books on how the 1980s and 90s made Trump www.thenation.com/article/soci...

I read Donald Trump's books for @thenation.com www.thenation.com/article/soci...

Like Melville, Cormac McCarthy offered us a view into the rapaciousness, megalomania, and violence of American empire. https://www.thenation.com/article/culture/cormac-mccarthy-obit-melville/

holy shit, it's everyone's favorite biweekly iconic lefty magazine culture section, @booksandthearts.bsky.social, right here on this very app!!!!!!!!!!!!