|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
By Andy Borowitz
By James Mann
$18.45
$21
|
|
|
|
AP photos / left: Gautam Singh / right: Uwe Lein
|
By Chris Hedges — The battle under way in America is not a battle between religion and science. It is a battle between religious and secular fundamentalists. It is a battle between two groups intoxicated with the utopian and magical belief that humankind can perfect itself and master its destiny.
|
Flickr / Joe Crimmings Photography
|
By Bill Boyarsky — Real politicians don’t quit. They are defeated, indicted, jailed, die or, in some jurisdictions, ousted by term limits. So don’t expect Hillary Clinton to surrender just yet.
|
Flickr / Kevindooley
|
Harvard scholar Linda Bilmes speaks about her work with Joseph Stiglitz. The two former Truthdiggers of the Week have a new book and have been working hard to uncover even more hidden expenses for the war in Iraq, which they estimate will cost the taxpayers and their children trillions of dollars.
|
|
By Fred Branfman — What kind of look back to the ‘60s manages to almost entirely ignore or miss the point of the Vietnam War?
|
|
By Amy Goodman — We just passed the grim milestone of 4,000 U.S. military members killed in Iraq since the invasion five years ago. Still, the death toll climbs.
|
|
By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — What’s the matter with conservatism? Its problems start with the failure of George W. Bush’s presidency but they don’t end there.
|
|
By Anthony Heilbut — What accounts for the strange need of some white scholars—from the plantation nostalgists of the late 1890s to the “Blues Mafia” of the 1960s—to honor African-American culture by trying to save black people from themselves?
|
|
By Mark Dowie — How a few brave Americans took on a powerful company and the federal government to save the land they love.
|
|
Willie Brown is a familiar name to many Californians, as one of the state’s most powerful and notorious politicians. Here he talks with Tavis Smiley, who asks about Brown’s new book, which is reported to be surprisingly frank.
|
|
By Warren I. Cohen — Just who are the “neocons,” where did they come from and how was it they came to wield so profound an influence among the highest circles of America’s policy elites? These are some of the questions asked by Jacob Heilbrunn in his new book, “They Knew They Were Right.”
|
|
By Yxta Maya Murray — The author who reviewed Margaret Seltzer’s phony memoir for Truthdig responds to the hoax and answers the singular question raised by such a deception.
|
|
By Larry Blumenfeld — Ned Sublette’s remarkable new book tells an inspiring story of resilience and resistance by ordinary men and women who won’t cooperate in their own erasure.
|
|
By Timothy Snyder — One of the great crimes of the 20th century—the mass murder of Jews in the Nazi-occupied Soviet territories—is all but forgotten. “The Unknown Black Book” helps us remember.
|
|
By Ellen Goodman — Remember when eating was an art, not a science? Remember when food wasn’t medicine? Remember when food didn’t need to be defended? ... Remember the good old days?
|
|
By Mark Arax — It is said that behind every great fortune there is a crime. Here’s a true-life drama of self-invention, greed and ambition involving four larger-than-life men who singly, and together, helped create California. A book to be read after you’ve watched “There Will Be Blood.”
|
AP photo / Baz Ratner
|
By Milton Viorst — Can decent Israelis, caught between complacency and conscience, save their beleaguered country from the corruptions of power, religious fanaticism and crippling hubris?
|
|
By Chalmers Johnson — A powerful new book by a young South Korean-born economist at Cambridge University provides a compelling critique of the contradictions and hypocrisies of globalization and neoliberalism. The perfect antidote to the nostrums of Thomas Friedman.
|
|
By Michael Gorra — The Nobel Prize-winning author of such stunning (and controversial) novels as “Waiting for the Barbarians” and “Disgrace” offers up his 19th book, about a South African writer, like Coetzee himself, who now lives in Australia and tries to understand the role of a writer caught between hope and history.
|
|
By Carol Brightman — Three new memoirs by veterans of the New Left provide nuance and complexity to a tumultuous decade whose political and cultural legacy is still contested. Bonus points to those who can answer the question: Do you still need a Weatherman to know which way the wind blows?
|
|
By Carla Kaplan — A new collection of letters between the fascinating Mitford sisters offers unparalleled insight into one of the 20th century’s most famous families.
|
|
By Zachary Karabell — With religious passions inflaming and complicating politics worldwide, the very project of a secular future is threatened. In “The Stillborn God,” Mark Lilla reveals the roots of the age-old quest to bring political life under God’s authority. He also explores how modern Western thinkers found a way to free politics from theological power and build barriers against destructive religious fanaticism.
|
|
By David Sirota — Henry Kravis is the king of private equity, the Wall Street sector that buys and bleeds companies. He and his ilk, to preserve their huge tax advantages, are making sure that millions of Americans won’t get a fair deal.
|
|
By Benjamin Barber — Can an overheated market remedy an underachieving democracy? Can the public interest be served by an economic engine in which corporate rivals use government to quash their competitors? These and other questions are the subject of a provocative new book by Robert Reich, labor secretary under President Clinton. Benjamin Barber, author of “Jihad vs. McWorld” and “Consumed,” takes a close look at Reich’s argument.
|
|
By David Sirota — If one thinks of the world as an airliner, we’re all behaving like thoughtless passengers who invade the space of the persons behind them by reclining their seats. The only difference is that with respect to the world, we’re killing each other by poisoning the air.
|
AP photo / Sasa Kralj
|
By Reese Erlich — In this excerpt from his new book, “The Iran Agenda,” veteran independent journalist and Truthdig contributor Reese Erlich challenges the conventional wisdom on Iran’s nuclear ambitions as he investigates the drive for war.
|
|
By Cristina Nehring — One of our most trenchant critics takes a withering look at how contemporary essayists in a global world have gone increasingly, foolishly, local.
|
masternewmedia.org
|
James Harris and Josh Scheer —
“Spying Blind” author Amy Zegart gives Truthdig a status report on America’s intelligence agencies and explains why our intelligence system is so broken and why our democracy may be to blame.
|
|
By John Mack Faragher — One of the most gifted historians of the American West takes a close look at the remarkable tale of triumph and tragedy that Keith Meldahl recounts in his dramatic story of the largest overland migration since the Crusades, as well as the equally compelling epic of the geology of the harsh and sublime Western landscape.
|
whitehouse.gov
|
Since the news broke about former White House press secretary Scott McClellan’s new book, there has been a curious lack of commentary on the topic in certain mainstream U.S. news outlets and only a vague official reaction from the White House. Meanwhile, his publisher is attempting to do some damage control.
|
|
James Harris and Josh Scheer —
Truthdig speaks with Sharon Weinberger, whose book “Imaginary Weapons” looks into why the Pentagon has spent billions of dollars on fantastical weapons programs, some of which defy the laws of physics.
|
|
By Nicholas von Hoffman — Why is it that so many voters continue to elect reactionaries who do their best to disenfranchise them? The answer, says Paul Krugman in his new book, is racism.
|
nytimes.com
|
Judith Regan, the HarperCollins publisher who was fired after her O.J. Simpson book project fell apart, has accused an unnamed executive from Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. of telling her to lie to federal investigators in order to protect Rudy Giuliani.
|
|
By Amy Goodman — One of the 20th century’s greatest journalists, interviewers and storytellers is alive and working at age 95: Studs Terkel offers both the wisdom of age and keen insight into the issues of today.
|
nytimes.com
|
By Todd Gitlin — Was the Bush administration’s fevered response to 9/11 made easier by primal American myths of victimization and fear, as Susan Faludi argues in her provocative new book?
|
|
Truthdig speaks with Sharon Weinberger, whose book “Imaginary Weapons” looks into why the Pentagon has spent billions of dollars on fantastical weapons programs, some of which defy the laws of physics.
|
|
By Chalmers Johnson — The best-selling author of “The Sorrows of Empire” takes a look at David Halberstam’s critical history of the Korean War.
|
film.guardian.co.uk
|
J.K. Rowling, author and creator of the phenomenally successful Harry Potter franchise, revealed to a packed Carnegie Hall on Friday that Albus Dumbledore, the revered Hogwarts headmaster in her book series, is gay. When her announcement sparked a round of applause, Rowling said, “I would have told you earlier if I knew it would make you so happy.”
|
masternewmedia.org
|
“Spying Blind” author Amy Zegart gives Truthdig a status report on America’s intelligence agencies and explains why our intelligence system is so broken and why our democracy may be to blame.
|
cnn.com
|
According to Lynne Cheney, her husband, Dick, and presidential hopeful Barack Obama have a common ancestor, but don’t expect a family reunion any time soon. As Obama’s spokesman quipped: “Obviously, Dick Cheney is sort of the black sheep of the family.”
|
AP Photo / Victor R. Caivano
|
By Marc Cooper — A former translator for Chile’s Salvador Allende reviews three books evaluating the remarkable rise of Venezuela’s irrepressible Hugo Chavez.
|
israellobbybook.com
|
The editor of the provocative new bestseller by John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt asks the authors (pictured above) whether their book is good for the Jews and good for America.
|
|
By Marie Cocco — If American politics is “an arena for angry minds,” then Clarence Thomas is in the right business. His new autobiography is filled with the predictable narcissism, but also a rage that raises questions about the merit of the lifetime appointment.
|
|
Chris Matthews got much more than he bargained for when he peddled his new book, “Life’s a Campaign,” on “The Daily Show.” In this clip, Jon Stewart savages the book, calling it both “a recipe for sadness” and a “self-hurt book” and making not-at-all-subtle references to Machiavelli and fascism. Fireworks ensue.
|
wonkette.com
|
The Supreme Court, arguably the most powerful institution in our democracy, manages to fly a bit under the radar. Take, for example, the $1.5-million advance Rupert Murdoch paid Clarence Thomas to write a book. Conflict of interest, perhaps? The Nation’s Jon Wiener thinks so.
|
|
The former president tells Jon Stewart about his new book, his wife’s quest to get back to “the best public housing in America,” why he might slit his throat if she’s successful, and how naps can save our democracy.
|
|
“Blackwater” author Jeremy Scahill sounds off on the security firm’s recent rampage and the impunity of America’s private militias.
|
AP Photo / Pablo Martinez Monsivais
|
By Chris Hedges — Bill Clinton has written a new book about charity, a fitting subject for a president who betrayed the poor and led his party into the arms of corporate America.
|
|
By Amy Goodman — I sat down with former President Jimmy Carter last week at the Carter Center in Atlanta. The Center was hosting a conference of human rights defenders, people at the front lines confronting repressive regimes around the globe. After a quarter-century of humanitarian work through the Carter Center, monitoring elections, working to eradicate neglected tropical diseases and focusing on the poor, Jimmy Carter now finds himself at the center of the storm in the Israel-Palestine conflict.
|
|
By Ellen Goodman — After 9/11, my husband started each morning reaching for the remote and saying, “Let’s see if they caught Osama.” This greeting began as an expectation, evolved into a lingering hope, and finally deteriorated into irony.
|
|
Truthdig’s James Harris and Josh Scheer speak with Harry Helms, author of “Top Secret Tourism: Your Travel Guide to Germ Warfare Laboratories, Clandestine Aircraft Bases and Other Places in the United States You’re Not Supposed to Know About.”
|
View the most popular tags overall?
|
|
A Mission on Climate Change
Newsletter 
Like Us
Follow Us
Get Our Feed
