archive

Life is not always greener

From First Monday, Carolyne Lee (Melbourne): Wordlings in a Web 2.0 World; Ryan McGrady (Emerson): Gaming against the Greater Good. From Slate, did Charles Dickens' 1867 trip to America inspire the first stirrings of modern celebrity culture? Matthew Pearl investigates. When Charles Dickens died, his British contemporaries were quick to blame his recent trip to America — certainly his relationship with the New World was peculiar. Phillip Blond's “Red Tory” thesis is attracting support from left and right, and the man emerging as the Conservatives' philosopher-king is a grave threat to Labour. A review of Simon Sebag-Montefiore's Heroes: History’s Greatest Men and Women. A review of Words in Air: The Complete Correspondence Between Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell. Alan Wolfe on the politics of opera. Volunteering for duty: Veterans of the Iraq war try to complete their mission in a new way — charity. A review of Experiencing War: Trauma and Society from Ancient Greece to the Iraq War. Could a guy who once starred in "Half Baked" actually help Benyamin Cohen get into heaven? A review of Book of Rhymes: The Poetics of Hip Hop by Adam Bradley. Liberty Hyde Bailey was part Al Gore, part Indiana Jones. Finding the lost city: Does the Amazon jungle conceal a vanished empire? The slumming of suburbia: The poor are fleeing our cities, but life is not always greener, even when affordable housing comes with a two-car garage. A review of Two Billion Cars: Driving Toward Sustainability by Daniel Sperling and Deborah Gordon.