Were retracing our steps out of the last bad-dream era in American life. Michael Ansara was in the thick of that struggle too, around war and justice. The Hard Work of Hope is his memoir ...

Were in Saratoga, New York, with the soulful American believer Marilynne Robinson, prize novelist and teacher of novelists. Shes known over the decades as the storyteller we trust to observe the tro

Were in the Orwellian aftermath of what President Trump has called his 12-day war in the Middle East. Its over, he proclaimed on Monday. Congratulations world, he said on his Truth Social site, i

This week, its a conversation on the democracy question and the embattled fate of our own, beset as it is from within. Philosopher-historian Danielle Allen is our guest examiner of the cranky America

Were with the writer Paul Elie, recalling the moment when popular culture came to sound like public prayer. There was Madonna in 1989, singing her number one hit Like a Prayer. The song is a ...

Were staring down the several crises in our economyand recalling the grand old joke that its easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism. John Cassidy. John Cassidy of The ...

Were staring down the global trade war with Mark Blyth at Brown University. He is the Peoples Economist from Scotland, who takes us home to his village pub in Dundee every once in a while ...

We have a key, finally, to the mystery of Donald Trump and where he came from. He was born almost exactly 100 years ago in the imagination of the novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald. What he ...

Were considering the Jesus story with the historian Elaine Pagels. Her new book is a marvel, crowning a lifetime of bestselling scholarship, sifting the sources and retuning the narrative in and arou

Were tracking President Trumps squeeze on higher education, and the argument in the Ivy League: whether or not to make a fight of it. First, Columbia surrendered under a Trump threat to cut $400 mil