News

Professor Danner reflects on the violence in the region, U.S. intervention, and the new book The Syria Dilemma, edited by Nader Hashemi and Danny Postel.

What really caused World War I? Professor Richard Aldous looks at The War That Ended Peace, by Margaret MacMillan.

In the New York Review of Books 50th anniversary issue, Daniel Mendelsohn finds feminism in the cultural phenomenon that is Game of Thrones.

Ian Buruma looks at how Europe and Asia rebuilt after the war's devastation to people, infrastructure, and institutions in his new book Year Zero: A History of 1945.

Bill Emmott, former Editor-in-Chief of The Economist, will present and discuss his new documentary film Girlfriend in a Coma on Thursday, October 17, at 6 pm in the Jim Ottaway Jr. Film Theater, Milton and Sally Avery Arts Center at Bard College. Called “beautiful and cruel” by Le Monde, Girlfriend in a Coma—cowritten by Emmott with Annalisa Piras, the film’s director—deals with the current political and economic crisis in Italy.

What goes into a good translation? Professor Mendelsohn considers the fine balancing act of bring a work to life in a different language.

Ian Buruma considers Edward Snowden's claim that he acted in accordance with his own conscience in light of recent remarks by Pope Francis on the importance of individual conscience to living morally.

Daniel Mendelsohn asks what the Greek poet Constantine Cavafy can tell us about the U.S. government shutdown.

Ian Buruma "depicts heroism, exultation and gratitude, but also brutality, venality, injustice, deceit, hypocrisy—and crushing disappointment" at the end of World War II.

Elena Ferrante is "so gifted that by the end she has you in tears," writes Italian professor Joseph Luzzi on Ferrante's newest novel.