The New York Review of Books

Health Care, Elsewhere: An Exchange

Thu, 16 Jul 2009 10:00:00 -0700

By Harold Kalant

Land Divers

Thu, 16 Jul 2009 10:00:00 -0700

By Claire Messud

The burglar stood at the bedroom window and watched them drive the Mini into the garage. They'd had the car windows open and Noddy and Cissy had been singing, very loudly, the calypso carol the lower school choir would perform at the Christmas concert: 'See him a-lying on a bed of straw, drafty stable with an open door...'

The World Finance Crisis & the American Mission

Thu, 16 Jul 2009 10:00:00 -0700

By Robert Skidelsky

Fixing Global Finance
by Martin Wolf

By common consent, we have been living through the greatest economic downturn since World War II. It originated, as we all know, in a collapse of the banking system, and the first attempts to understand the resulting economic crisis focused on the reasons for bank failures. The banks, it was said, had failed to 'manage' the new 'risks' posed by financial innovation. Alan Greenspan's statement that the cause of the crisis was the 'underpricing of risk worldwide' was the most succinct expression of this view. Particular attention was paid to the role of the American subprime mortgage market as the source of the so-called 'toxic' assets that had come to dominate bank balance sheets. Early remedies for the crisis concentrated on bailing out or refinancing the banks, so that they could start lending again. These were followed by 'stimulus packages,' both monetary and fiscal, to revive the real economy.

Manhood for Amateurs: The Wilderness of Childhood

Thu, 16 Jul 2009 10:00:00 -0700

By Michael Chabon

When I was growing up, our house backed onto woods, a thin two-acre remnant of a once-mighty wilderness. This was in a Maryland city where the enlightened planners had provided a number of such lingering swaths of green. They were tame as can be, our woods, and yet at night they still filled with unfathomable shadows. In the winter they lay deep in snow and seemed to absorb, to swallow whole, all the ordinary noises of your body and your world. Scary things could still be imagined to take place in those woods. It was the place into which the bad boys fled after they egged your windows on Halloween and left your pumpkins pulped in the driveway. There were no Indians in those woods, but there had been once. We learned about them in school. Patuxent Indians, they'd been called. Swift, straight-shooting, silent as deer. Gone but for their lovely place names: Patapsco, Wicomico, Patuxent.

Holocaust: The Ignored Reality

Thu, 16 Jul 2009 10:00:00 -0700

By Timothy Snyder

Venice: The Masters in Boston

Thu, 16 Jul 2009 10:00:00 -0700

By Andrew Butterfield

Titian, Tintoretto, Veronese: Rivals in Renaissance Venice
an exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, March 15–August 16, 2009, and the Louvre, Paris, September 14, 2009–January 4, 2010

On view now at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, is the first group show ever organized in America about Venetian painting of the late sixteenth century. Moderate in scale, the exhibition does not attempt a comprehensive survey of the period. Rather, it pre-sents only the three most important Venetian painters of the time--Titian, Tintoretto, and Veronese--and it focuses on a selection of their works that is meant to reveal their mutual influence and competition. The exhibition seeks to demonstrate that the rivalry of the three artists was a major force in the growth of Venetian art.

From 'Summertime': 'Undated Fragments'

Thu, 16 Jul 2009 10:00:00 -0700

By J.M. Coetzee

It is a Saturday afternoon in winter, ritual time for the game of rugby. With his father he catches a train to Newlands in time for the 2:15 curtain-raiser. The curtain-raiser will be followed at 4:00 by the main match. After the main match they will catch a train home again.

Advice to the Prince

Thu, 16 Jul 2009 10:00:00 -0700

By David Bromwich

Power Rules: How Common Sense Can Rescue American Foreign Policy
by Leslie H. Gelb

Barack Obama: "A New Beginning"

'Force projection' in the Middle East is the largest legacy Barack Obama inherits from the administration of George W. Bush; and the main question asked about Obama in his first months in office has been how far he intends to continue Bush's policy. The answer in December 2008 seemed to be an expansion of the war in Afghanistan and a careful withdrawal from Iraq, with no clear signal on Iran, Israel, and Palestine. All this changed with Obama's speech in Cairo on June 4. But the events of the last year were the climate in which Leslie Gelb wrote Power Rules-- a book modeled on The Prince, whose 'main addressee' the author declares to be 'you, Mr. President.'

Podcast: Claire Messud Reads "Land Divers"

Mon, 29 Jun 2009 05:08:42 -0700

Novelist and critic Claire Messud, author most recently of The Emperor's Children, reads her new story "Land Divers," from the Review's Summer Fiction Issue. To read Messud's story, or her other work from the Review, please visit nybooks.com

Podcast: Michael Tomasky on Obama's Strategy

Mon, 22 Jun 2009 13:37:14 -0700

Michael Tomasky speaks with Hugh Eakin about public perception of the President and his policies, the thinking behind the administration's ceding of authority to Congress, and the sheer pace of Obama's Washington. To read Tomasky's 'The Unencumbered Man' or his other work for the Review, please visit nybooks.com

Podcast: David Cole on the Future of Same-Sex Marriage

Mon, 15 Jun 2009 08:33:22 -0700

David Cole speaks with Michael Shae about the recent California supreme court ruling, the changing demographics that support nationwide acceptance of same-sex marriage, and the legislative and political options likely to be pursued by future activists. To read Cole's article, or his other work for the review, please visit nybooks.com

Podcast: Nicholas Kristof on Darfur

Mon, 08 Jun 2009 11:10:29 -0700

Nicholas Kristof speaks with Sasha Weiss about reporting on Darfur, the International Criminal Court's recent indictment of Sudan's president, Omar al-Bashir, and what the Obama administration might do to prevent escalation of the Darfur conflict. To read more of Kristof's work, please visit nybooks.com

Podcast: Ahmed Rashid on Pakistan in Crisis

Mon, 01 Jun 2009 09:24:50 -0700

Ahmed Rashid speaks with Hugh Eakin about the continuing conflict between the Taliban and the Pakistani government, the humanitarian crisis in Swat, and the violence that has spread from the border with Afghanistan to within sixty miles of the capital, Islamabad. To read Rashid's article, "Pakistan on the Brink," or his other work for the Review, please visit nybooks.com