Eduardo Halfon The Last Tiger Kullu seemed haunted by the tale he told me of his grandfather’s encounter with a mighty predator. But he had another history to share, one to haunt me. November 30, 2021
Irina Dumitrescu Thinking in Old English “I use my essays for the public to think through my research questions. I cannot imagine ever writing a monograph in a traditional scholarly style again.” November 27, 2021
Krithika Varagur The Anti-Nazi Punjabi Princess Catherine Duleep Singh was an Anglo-Indian aristocrat who lived much of her life quietly with another woman in Germany. Then she became a savior of Jewish refugees. November 27, 2021
Anastasia Edel A Taste of Home Back in the USSR, pirozhki—the stuffed buns sold by street vendors all over Russia—were the quintessential comfort food in a world of paucity and mystery meat. November 24, 2021
Tariq Mir Kashmir’s Cycle of Death The more ruthlessly India uses military force to make its regional power plays, the more ineluctably young Kashmiris are drawn into armed resistance. November 22, 2021
Neal Ascherson Declarations of Independence “I saw how the British Empire could transform decent white people into puffed-up petty tyrants. Even if the Communist insurgents were not the ‘right side,’ I realized I was on the wrong side.” November 20, 2021
Greil Marcus A Ride on the Velvet Underground Revolving around Lou Reed and John Cale, Todd Haynes’s documentary on the avant-garde rock band is itself an art project in the spirit of Andy Warhol’s Factory. November 18, 2021
Matt Seaton The Etymology of Terror For more than 150 years after it was coined, “terrorism” meant violence inflicted by the state on its people. How did the word come to mean the reverse? November 17, 2021
Christopher Benfey In the Kingdom of Coincidence I don’t have a theory of chance connections—I don’t see them as part of a divine plan or dictated by the stars—but, like other writers, I find them richly suggestive. November 15, 2021
Susan Barba What Fastens Us to the World “I didn’t write because I had something to say. I wrote because I had nothing to say and writing gave me words, even to express silence.” November 13, 2021
