The New York Review of Books

‘The Devil Himself’ | Anne Enright At first I am afraid to enter the library. I have arrived at the US Department of Justice website because my attention got snagged by a random post on

“I decide to spend one day with [Jeffrey Epstein], to look at twenty-four hours of his correspondence, and then go offline.” —Anne Enright

As always, a must-read by @keshavarziana.bsky.social. An insightful, historically grounded look at the domestic sociopolitical and economic dynamics as well as the international conditions that have ushered in the current moment of crisis for #Iran and the broader region.

En Pointe  | Marina Harss, Lauren Kane “I’m struck by ballet’s ability to create something extraordinarily beautiful out of something so difficult and so taxing on the brain and body.”

“I take the job of transmitting dance’s inner story very seriously.” —an interview with @marinaharss.bsky.social

This Thursday join Sue Halpern and Marc Elias (@marcelias.bsky.social) for a livestreamed discussion on voting rights and election integrity. Tickets are pay-what-you-wish and open to the public. Register below: https://go.nybooks.com/4d1b5wP

Tick, Tick...Boom! | Jacob Weisberg Andrew Ross Sorkin’s history of the 1929 stock market crash reminds us that financial bubbles are inevitable—and that another one may be about to pop.

“The AI bubble could end up looking less like the dot-com crash of 2000 and more like the asset bubble and systemic financial collapse of 2008—or 1929.” —Jacob Weisberg

The Lie of ‘Preventive’ War | David Cole In January, during a lengthy New York Times interview with President Donald Trump, one of the paper’s reporters asked him whether he saw “any checks” to

“Ultimate responsibility for the Iran war lies with Trump,” writes David Cole (@davidcole-gtown.bsky.social). “But the road to it was paved by his predecessors—of both parties.”

Building the Electrostate | Sandeep Vaheesan In the United States today, officials at all levels of government generally act as if private enterprise is the only way to provide goods and services.

“Today’s campaigns to take over private utilities are not just about finding a better way to keep the lights on but about making a case for the very idea of public and cooperative ownership.” —Sandeep Vaheesan

‘We Think They’ll Kill Someone’ | Anjan Sundaram Indigenous communities in Mexico who oppose the construction of megaprojects on their lands do so at great risk.

In Mexico, many fear that when extractive industries arrive, as Anjan Sundaram quotes a local teacher, “‘the cartels also come, the addiction also comes, the drugs, the prostitution, human trafficking. Our sons and daughters will have office jobs, but they won’t be safe.’”

The Stony Dark Within | Joy Williams This is the 150th anniversary of Rilke’s birth. Or, you might say, the 99th anniversary of his death. I asked a small group of students if they knew of

“Not to be arrogant, Rilke murmurs modestly, but this is the situation. You need me, God, like the living need the dead.”—Joy Williams

For the Fossil Record | Ian Tattersall, Anika Banister “I took the opportunity to observe the surviving lemurs in their natural habitats—and it was love at first sight.”

“Studying [lemurs] made me keenly conscious of just how much variety is out there in the living world.” —an interview with Ian Tattersall

The Wandering Physicist | Alec Wilkinson Luis Alvarez brought a scientific pragmatism to many of the twentieth century’s greatest mysteries, including the secrets of pyramids, the Kennedy assassination, and the disappearance of the dinosaurs...

Atomic bombs, pyramids, assassinations, dinosaurs, golf swings: “In the twentieth century, perhaps no physicist, and maybe no scientist, ranged more widely or with more effect than Luis Alvarez.” —Alec Wilkinson

God’s Impertinent Prophets | Erin Maglaque A new history brings to light the dissenting women who wrote, preached, and testified during England’s tumultuous seventeenth century, claiming the standing to speak as excluded outsiders who had un u...

Latest piece in the New York Review of Books by our colleague Erin Maglaque: God's Impertinent Prophets

www.nybooks.com/articles/202...

@erinmaglaque.bsky.social

‘We Think They’ll Kill Someone’ | Anjan Sundaram Indigenous communities in Mexico who oppose the construction of megaprojects on their lands do so at great risk.

this is a really good piece of reporting: www.nybooks.com/articles/202...

Diversity by Other Means | David Cole Progressives may have lost the battle for racial affirmative action, but ironically, Supreme Court decisions should allow colleges to give advantage to groups defined by their income, geography, or he...

In this review, I discussed how colleges can maintain diversity on their campuses in the wake of the Supreme Court Harvard ruling, and can do so fully legally.

www.nybooks.com/articles/202...

Iran Transformed | Arang Keshavarzian On February 28 Israeli warplanes assassinated Ali Khamenei, Iran’s leader, by dropping thirty bombs on his compound in Tehran. It was the opening salvo of

My essay for NYRB maps out how iran got to this point. “But January’s protests werenot just the prelude to a geopolitical contest. They offer a window intothe fortunes of Iran’s citizens, the changing structure of its state, & the trajectory of the regime the US now seeks to obliterate.”

Alexei Ratmansky’s Leap of Faith | Marina Harss Having wrested himself from Russia after the invasion of Ukraine, the great choreographer has sought to remake himself and his work in Denmark.

In Denmark, the Russian-born choreographer Alexei Ratmansky “has found his way to a peaceable kingdom in which each person, each action, each note has its place.” —Marina Harss

Iran Transformed | Arang Keshavarzian On February 28 Israeli warplanes assassinated Ali Khamenei, Iran’s leader, by dropping thirty bombs on his compound in Tehran. It was the opening salvo of

Arang Keshavarzian (@keshavarziana.bsky.social) on the war on Iran and the country’s long political-economic crisis https://go.nybooks.com/4rUnNlG

The Island That Held Them | Meghan O’Gieblyn In David Greig’s novel The Book of I, a monk, a Viking, and a ‘mead wife’ navigate a world torn between paganism and Christianity.

“No one gets anywhere, creatively, by trying to play God. It’s only by working close to the ground, remaining attentive to the immanence of human affairs, that you can hope to reach something transcendent.” —Meghan O’Gieblyn

Rembrandt’s DNA | Ruth Bernard Yeazell The Leiden Collection—one of the largest private collections of Dutch art in the world—was conceived as a “lending library for Old Masters,” animated by the humanist spirit found in Rembrandt’s painti...

Ruth Bernard Yeazell on the Dutch masters

En Pointe  | Marina Harss, Lauren Kane “I’m struck by ballet’s ability to create something extraordinarily beautiful out of something so difficult and so taxing on the brain and body.”

“I’m struck by ballet’s ability to create something extraordinarily beautiful out of something so difficult and so taxing on the brain and body.” —@marinaharss.bsky.social, interviewed by Lauren Kane

Artistic License | Ingrid D. Rowland When an angel in a recently restored Roman chapel was seen to resemble Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, it touched off a very Italian scandal.

“When does decoration make the sublime step from craft to art? In Italy, with its endless layers of meaning, it all depends. It always depends.” —Ingrid D. Rowland

‘An Entirely New Domain of Knowledge’ | Magda Teter The Torah scholars who came to be called “rabbis” emerged as figures of authority after the destruction of the Jewish Temple in 70 CE and the later exile of Jews from Judaea—and created Judaism’s foun...

The “conversations, debates, and quarrels” of early rabbis “capture how they grappled with questions of practice and observance of the Torah without the temple.” —@mteter-historian.bsky.social

A Real Live Socialist | Thomas Powers What Bernie Sanders brought to the job of mayor of Burlington and what he did with it help explain what matters to him and how he fits into American political argument.

“About politics, about the injustices of life, you couldn’t turn Bernie off.” —Thomas Powers on Bernie Sanders’s beginnings in Burlington

‘Dirty Work’ | Nathan Thrall The Israeli writer S. Yizhar’s 1949 novella Khirbet Khizeh portrays the violent reality of the Nakba. For decades it was part of the canon of Hebrew literature. That has changed.

"Denial, however, is a tricky thing. It is a form of simultaneously seeing and not seeing, knowing and not knowing." www.nybooks.com/articles/202...

Here is @tricialockwood.bsky.social writing like Emily Dickinson, so beautifully.

Fool’s Errands | Joost Hiltermann It took Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu many years of persistent effort before he succeeded in finding a US president willing to help him

Even if Iran’s power is severely curtailed, the regime might still survive. Its repressive apparatus could well intensify, crushing any hint of dissent among the proportion of the Iranian people whose hatred of their leaders has been on full display. @nybooks.com

www.nybooks.com/online/2026/...

The Lie of ‘Preventive’ War | David Cole In January, during a lengthy New York Times interview with President Donald Trump, one of the paper’s reporters asked him whether he saw “any checks” to

The attacks on Venezuela and Iran will cost US taxpayers billions of dollars—billions that won’t be spent creating jobs, building houses, or providing health care, the things the American people actually want from their government. @nybooks.com

www.nybooks.com/online/2026/...

One reason I always look forward to @nybooks.com landing in my letterbox is that it introduces me to stories, people, histories, and books I might never otherwise discover. This article 👇 is fascinating.

Diversity by Other Means | David Cole Progressives may have lost the battle for racial affirmative action, but ironically, Supreme Court decisions should allow colleges to give advantage to groups defined by their income, geography, or he...

'Progressives may have lost the battle for racial affirmative action, but ironically, Supreme Court decisions should allow colleges to give advantage to groups defined by their income, geography, or heritage.' --David Cole
www.nybooks.com/articles/202... | @nybooks.com

Who Speaks for Us? | Marilynne Robinson The representatives of our two-party system have made it into a weapon that works against the people.

“The No available to the people in our binary system is associated with the Democratic party, whoever they are. They seem to have no idea that the great issues of these days must be confronted by the people.” —Marilynne Robinson