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Life Is Short. Indexes Are Necessary.

In his new history of the index, Dennis Duncan traces its evolution through the constantly changing character of reading itself.

Index, A History of the: A Bookish Adventure from Medieval Manuscripts to the Digital Age

by Dennis Duncan


The Divine Guido

A new exhibition at the Prado dispels the idea that Guido Reni was an academic painter, revealing instead a tireless innovator.

Guido Reni

an exhibition at the Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid, March 28–July 9, 2023


Escaping Biography

Nathalie Sarraute sought to free the novel from old narrative conventions and refused to admit the relevance of her own experience—as a woman, as a Jew—to her writing.

Nathalie Sarraute: A Life Between

by Ann Jefferson


Fireball Over Siberia

A mysterious 1908 meteorite explosion became the object of widespread fascination and fear decades after it occurred.

Tunguska: A Siberian Mystery and Its Environmental Legacy

by Andy Bruno


Who Are the Taliban Now?

Hassan Abbas’s book surveys the second Islamic Emirate’s ideology and leading personalities and probes its internal tensions.

The Return of the Taliban: Afghanistan After the Americans Left

by Hassan Abbas


Right Busy with Sticks and Spales

The historian Nicholas Orme lets us glimpse what the sixteenth century was like for children.

Tudor Children

by Nicholas Orme


A Poisonous Legacy

Two new books reveal the story of Stanford University’s early years to be rife with corruption, autocracy, incompetence, white supremacy, and murder.

Who Killed Jane Stanford?: A Gilded Age Tale of Murder, Deceit, Spirits, and the Birth of a University

by Richard White

American Disruptor: The Scandalous Life of Leland Stanford

by Roland De Wolk


The Millions We Failed to Save

The recent documentary The US and the Holocaust is a scathing, even bombastic indictment of US immigration policy over the past 160 years.

The US and the Holocaust

a PBS documentary series directed and produced by Ken Burns, Lynn Novick, and Sarah Botstein

In the Garden of the Righteous: The Heroes Who Risked Their Lives to Save Jews During the Holocaust

by Richard Hurowitz


Death and the Hedgehog

With his conversion to his own highly distinct form of Christianity, Tolstoy made a religion of universal love, forsaking violence, laws, private property, and high culture.

Tolstoy as Philosopher: Essential Short Writings (1835–1910): An Anthology

edited and translated from the Russian by Inessa Medzhibovskaya

On Life: A Critical Edition

by Leo Tolstoy, edited by Inessa Medzhibovskaya, and translated from the Russian by Michael Denner and Inessa Medzhibovskaya


Ego-Histories

The more that historians make their own experiences an explicit part of their work, the harder it will become to let the sources speak clearly.

Singular Pasts: The “I” in Historiography

by Enzo Traverso, translated from the French by Adam Schoene

History and Human Flourishing

edited by Darrin M. McMahon


Reclaiming Native Identity in California

The genocide of Native Americans was nowhere more methodically savage than in California. A new state initiative seeks to reckon with this history.

Too Good for Hollywood

Despite her long career on stage and screen—from an Oscar nomination to the blacklist—Aline MacMahon never became a household name.

Aline MacMahon: Hollywood, the Blacklist, and the Birth of Method Acting

by John Stangeland


Not How He Wanted to Be Remembered

Two decades passed before the ghosts of the Rosenbergs came back to haunt Irving Kaufman, the judge who sentenced them to death.

Judgment and Mercy: The Turbulent Life and Times of the Judge Who Condemned the Rosenbergs

by Martin J. Siegel


Meow!

Cats refute the claim that the unexamined life is not worth living, by living it.

Cats Galore Encore!: A New Compendium of Cultured Cats

by Susan Herbert

The Internet Is for Cats: How Animal Images Shape Our Digital Lives

by Jessica Maddox

Feline Philosophy: Cats and the Meaning of Life

by John Gray

All My Cats

by Bohumil Hrabal, translated from the Czech by Paul Wilson

Jeoffry: The Poet’s Cat

by Oliver Soden

Issue Details

Cover art
David Shrigley: Old Cat, 2022 (© 2023 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/DACS, London)

Series art
Romy Blümel: Pebble, 2023

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